“So, it is with children who learn to read fluently and well: They begin to take flight into whole new worlds as effortlessly as young birds take to the sky.” William James-

To build stronger relationships with the people around us, and successfully get our ideas across, we should be able to communicate more effectively. Communication skills can be highly rewarding if you can take out time to improve on them. At times, even if we have memorized the plenitude of vocabulary, practiced our grammar skills, and can read books entirely in English, we might struggle to express ourselves. The feeling of getting stuck is highly common and here are some top tips to help you level up your fluency in Communication.

Catching Breath: Take your time and slow down your speaking speed. This will enable you to have more time to select your words, think about your answers, and give the best possible response. You will be appreciated for selecting your words carefully.

Personal Dictionary: Take a couple of minutes to ascertain sentences that contain the new word you have learned. This will not only aid you in conversation and communication but also provide you with a stronger grip on the word’s meaning. We can maintain a record of any new words we come across, their meaning, and their use in a sentence. Focus on using a few of those words every day and watch your vocabulary expand. This book will serve as your dictionary. You may flick through this book often and find yourself using those words while speaking.

Dig into Reading: Do you like adventure or suspense? Comedy or horror? What kind of stories do you prefer? There are books available in every genre. If you select a book that interests you, you will find yourself engaged in an area of significance. While reading, you will come across new words which you can make a note of in your dictionary. The good part about learning new words while reading is that you can see the word being used in a sentence, which helps you understand the usage of that word. While reading, one tends to learn English with effortless trying.

Encapsulate: Summarising the main ideas of a given passage or paragraph is known as encapsulating and is a great way of producing original and creative language. After reading a passage, note down the main ideas from the piece to be summarised in a pre-decided number of sentences. Challenge yourself by increasing or decreasing the number of sentences you can use for the summary. Then, elaborate upon the main ideas verbally -in your own words; you will be making your sentences. This will also help you to look for new ways to express a certain idea.

Record your voice: A fabulous way of correcting your pronunciation and reviewing your language is listening to yourself speak. Allow yourself a topic and record yourself when you speak and play it back to yourself. You will be able to identify pronunciation and evaluate your language. Select a variety of topics – ranging from the exciting to the uninteresting. Sometimes, it is fun to pick up a topic that doesn’t interest you at all. When you record your speech on such a topic, you will observe variations in intonation and speed of speech based on your interest in the topic!

Listen open and actively: Listening and comprehending are key to developing your communicative ability in English.  Our ability to understand is enhanced if we listen carefully. It makes us better communicators and also makes the experience of communicating with you more enjoyable. The key is to experiment and not be afraid to try and use a higher level of language and the process of exploration is indeed loaded with fun.

Here, at Oakridge International School Bachupally kids enjoy an inflow of activities that enables them to achieve fluency in their communication. Kids are encouraged to take part in Discussion Questions and they do well with open-ended questions. Moving on with the same activity, this can be turned into a Board game too. Dialogue role play and Reader’s Theatre enables the kids to articulate and express themselves with efficiency. Input Cards are the best way to promote fluency among the kids that have the gift of gab and the ones who struggle with confidence. This is a great way to help our talkers listen and our listeners talk.

By Smita Ghosh

Cambridge Primary English Facilitator