Lesson 22

 

 

   

 

VERBAL COMPONENTS OF SOCIAL SKILLS

The verbal contents of what you are saying determines the objective, what we propose when we are speaking to others, from holding a conversation on a topic, to making a request. Some of the objectives which we propose when we speak are:

•  Starting and maintaining a conversation

•  Speaking in public

•  Showing love, pleasure, affection

•  Defending our own rights

•  Asking favours

•  Rejecting requests

•  Making and accepting compliments

•  Expressing personal opinions, although they do not agree with the initial speaker

•  Showing you are annoyed, displeased or angry

•  Saying sorry

•  Admitting your ignorance

•  Asking other people to change their behaviour

•  Confronting criticism

So that you are efficient when you speak you should take into account the following aspects:

1. Time you have to speak

2. Feedback

3. Using questions

The time every speaker has to speak should be the same. Studies show that people that speak more than 80% of the time are not valued very well, as they are considered egocentric.

During a conversation feedback is fundamental. We should show other people that we are listening to them by reacting to what they say, what feelings are provoked? (interest, happiness, sadness, etc). Feedback should be regular and intermittent, never constant. Showing too much attention wil cause interruptions, without a doubt, and also it is usually interpreted as a sign, that in reality, the person wants us to stop speaking. It is also important to remember that the feedback that we give others should not concentrate on the negative aspects. We can show attention to what they say in different ways:

•  Maintaining eye contact for more than 50% of the time
•  Nodding your head

•  Using expressions like "yes", "of course", "I see".

•  Paraphrasing the speaking: "So, what happened to you was...."

•  Repeating some of the speaker's words

•  Indicating the emotion that the speaker has produced in us in what he is telling us.

•  Asking questions about what they are talking to us about (How did you feel when your colleague left you?"

It is convenient to use questions, as they are a fundamental tool to:

•  Maintain a conversation: questions are a way to invite other people to continue speaking. If one of our friends tells us about his weekend, we can make the conversation longer by asking him questions about certain aspects of it: What did you eat in the restaurant? Was there a lot of traffic? What did you think of the film? Without a doubt, some of these questions will give way to new opportunities to continue the conversation.

•  Obtain information : know more information about what the speaker is talking about, so you can make the conversation longer, this is also convenient when the conversation needs to solve a problem.

•  Provide feedback

•  Influence other people's behaviour : questions can help us to get people to reflect about the result of their actions and get them to suggest a change. Some examples of these types of questions are, "how do you think I feel with the way you have behaved?" or "Do you think we could find a solution to this problem?".

There are two fundamental types of questions:

•  Open: open questions are those that require more than a mono syllable answer or a short sentence. An example of an open questions is "What happened at the party?" or "Tell me about your holiday". This type of question invite the speaker to speak for a length of time.

•  Closed : closed questions are answered with a mono syllable or a maximum of two or three words; for example "Where have you parked?" or "Have you had a good time?". You can see that they do facilitate a long conversation.