Communication Skills

Since I was in school, I have been asked several times to improve and hone my communication skills. Later in college, professors asked me and often scold me when judging on same parameters and now in office Performagic is killing me on this. However, throughout the time I have realized that my communication skills if not good are enough so that I can express myself sufficiently. However, I just don’t understand what exactly these people percept about communication skills. I think it is generally your English speaking skills. However, in this case too I can speak English as much as is required to make myself clear.

If speaking English is the criteria to judge the communication skills of a person then I disagree with anyone, everyone who thinks like that. As a person who doesn’t know English, however good he will be in expressing himself in his mother tongue, will always be considered an ignorant idiot who doesn’t have any sort of communication skills. And I think this is totally wrong.

Recently, I was traveling by train from Agra to Pune. There was a group of people aged somewhere around 25-30 yrs sitting beside me. Their dialect made me think that they were either from Eastern Uttar Pradesh or Bihar. They were going to Bhopal to take Station Master’s recruitment test. After talking for several hours I realized that they don’t know English. They kept on talking in Hindi and discussing and debating on varied and myriad of issues ranging from entertainment to politics. Their discussion was so interesting that I kept on listening to what they were speaking. The knowledge that they shared among themselves and unknowingly with me was tremendous. The way they were speaking was enthralling enough for anyone to keep listening to them. When they were arguing on something they were not speaking for the sake of speaking; they supported their statements with examples, incidents, anecdotes and references.

I was listening to their discussion when I realized what actually powerful communication skill meant. The only way to improve communication skills is to keep you updated and to do that one have to read and understand.