When was the last time you wanted to speak, but couldn’t? You wanted to put into words your thoughts and feelings, but it was just a struggle to do so? When was the last time you realized that communication was not just simply about talking and writing?
Perhaps, it was the time when you thought that communication was just about expressing yourself.
In today’s fast-paced culture of instant everything, including the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) where everyone is demanded to do more with less, communication plays a big role. Just like everyone else, we, Filipinos communicate not just to be heard, but also to listen – to share what we think and feel, and to respond appropriately.
Communication can be a tool to unite as well as create a new society. It is now more common to hear governments or dictators driven out of power because the people were united. However, communication does not succeed unless one makes the effort of creating and using all communication channels.
Communication is not just simply talking or giving out signals and receiving them. It is more than that. It requires competencies. To be communicatively competent, we need to hone our skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing – the four cores of communication.
Listening as a skill is regarded as the important part of communication because this is where understanding takes place. However, oftentimes, we forget to listen. To appropriately respond, it is more than just letting information go through one ear to the other. It is about analyzing the message received and giving the desired feedback. This explains why communication becomes useless without listening. Who would want to speak without someone who listens?
Speaking, on the other hand, involves the production of information that represents our thoughts, ideas, feelings, and emotions. Speaking is a good way of expression. The Filipino stereotypes always speak transparently and their thoughts are basically presented, plain and simple. To be competent in speaking boosts self-confidence and the need to speak can be addressed and eventually achieved when one is able to articulate our thoughts.
Reading is another integral part of communication and it involves interaction between the words and the reader. Sometimes, the importance of reading has become a tiresome act of scrolling, but reading requires understanding, which, somehow has been lost.
Similarly, writing is an essential tool in expressing your thoughts into words without the need to speak. This is the sole purpose of the G-Tech pen that you protected with your life. “What’s on your mind?” Facebook asks. And then you begin writing, typing words, updating your status. Funny, but it is true. There are things better left unsaid and are, therefore, written. How else would Shakespeare express his innermost thoughts and feelings?
In communication, we listen, speak, read, and write to understand and be understood. We have now become vocal and outspoken about issues that concern us. However, we do not often succeed in every situation we are in. Thus, there is a need to integrate the four basic competencies.
Just like the work that we do, communication skills also need to be weaved in a way that we will produce the desired outcome. Only when these four skills are woven together and non-verbal skills can be used with them can our society rise as one people bonded by a common purpose. | NWI
