Ability to communicate effectively is perhaps the most important of all life skills. It is an interpersonal skill enabling us to pass information to other people, and to understand what is said to us. It should be developed in schools.Teachers should open their mind and encourage them to reflect rather than telling always “keep quiet!”.Give them confidence and eliminate their fear and shyness.Encourage all students to participate in class discussion. Avoid focusing on the students that are always willing to answer. Look for responses from the entire classroom, and be willing to take the time for them to emerge.
Assign frequent opportunities for small group discussion. The more often students work together in order to contribute to the larger discussion, the more comfortable they will become within the classroom environment, increasing their willingness to communicate. Assembly talks, one minute talk by all students, story telling by students, role plays, debate etc should be practiced.
Most important 21 century skills to be developed in schools are 4 C’s.
A. Creativity b. Critical thinking c. Collaboration d. Communication.
Communication has a vital role to develop personality.
In classroom teachers should focus on 4 D’s for effective learning and reiterating the concepts:
1.Define – the concept.
2.Discover — Gather knowledge and research on the concept
3.Dream — Think about the possible ways the problem can be solved, and imagine what you want the end result to look like.
4.Design — Use the concepts to start building solution.

Also, healthy connection and open communication between parent and child form part of the foundation for a child’s language development and communication skill.

Murali Nair
Academic Director