What Exactly is Communication Skill and How to Improve it? 

Many language learners desire to communicate well with native speakers of the language or those who speak it. I have always dreamt of talking more fluently and texting through social media with my Russian friends better. It is no exaggeration to say that good communication skill gives you an opportunity to interact better and become closer with Russian-speaking people.

A question is: what exactly is communication skill? You may have some ideas of ‘good communicator’ you want to become, but it also would be greater and more helpful if you have more solid knowledge of what communication skill consists of. For those of you who are keen to develop better communication skill and expand your chance to interact with Russian-speaking counterparts, I summarised in this article what have been discovered and discussed about communication skills in academics, and will give you some tips to improve this skill during your Russian study! 

Grammatical Competence

The first one is called grammatical competence, or a skill in using grammar appropriately in interaction. Grammatical accuracy is often underestimated when it comes to communication, but it not only understanding easier, but also helps avoid causing misunderstanding. For example, imagine when you have finally finished reading Dostoevsky’s 800-pages book The Brothers Karamazov, but you have mistakenly said “Вчера я читал «Братья Карамазовы».” to your friends, instead of “Вчера я дочитал «Братья Карамазовы»”. Despite your long effort and excitement, your friend may not understand the greatness of what you have just done. 

One good tip for developing true grammatical competence is to learn vocabularies and grammar tules in a context, rather than focusing merely on understanding the rules. If you are in class, you may to talk to teachers and classmates with new grammar rules you just learnt in order to test if they can be used in a different context. Also, reading a book is a good practice for grammar. In a book, same vocabularies are repeatedly used and in different forms depending on the context.

Sociolinguistics Competence

If you speak a language such as German or French, you are not confused by Russian ‘Ты’ and ‘Вы’ (they are singular and plural ‘you’ in English but there is even more than that to remember), and you can probably use them properly. However, even if you understand the difference between them, you can easily fall into unintentional rudeness without proper knowledge of Russia social norms, and this is called sociolinguistics competence, or a skill in using a language appropriately depending on the social context. As I come from Japan, I am still confused with to whom I should use Вы and can use Ты without being impolite. 

Although you can learn this aspect from teachers, it is not easy to acquire this skill only in a classroom because it is common that people of the similar age and background learn together in a class. The best practice is to learn it when language is used with people in a different context. For example, movies and TVs shows where you can see people from different social backgrounds are good examples for improving this aspect of communicative competence.

Discourse Competence

Third aspect is called discourse competence, and it is a skill to create coherent utterances and sentences in different genre. This means, when you have interaction, you use different words and ways of speaking depending on the situations. For example, you may talk with your friends in an informal manner, starting “Привет, как ты?”, but you might want to be formal even to the same friends if you are conducting a presentation in a classroom. Hence, a good communicator can adopt a different way of talking suitable to the context, and which leads to a more effective communication.

You can develop this by having interaction in different imaginary situations, rather than just having general conversation. As a classroom activity, presentation and speech are good practice, in which you can learn some sets of idiomatic phrases. More importantly, be aware that a certain level of formality is expected when conducting presentation or speech, which helps you develop different styles of communication! 

Strategic Competence

Last not the least, you also need to develop Strategic Competence to be a good communicator. This means, you have and can make use of a lot of strategies in a communication in order to compensate your weakness. For example, when you do not know or forgot some words in conversation, just thinking quietly is not a good idea. Instead, you can simply say “Как сказать.. (how to say..)” or “Я забыл слово… (I forgot a word..)”, and these few words help your speakers to understand what you are thinking and to kindly want until you come up with a solution! Also, facial expressions and body languages help you convey your feelings even when your vocabularies are limited! 

While there is a lot of strategies depending on your situations, you can start remembering some useful phrases. If you are a beginner and do not know many vocabularies, keep in mind phrases such as “Повторите, пожалуйста (Could you say again)” or “Говорите помедленнее, пожалуйста (Speak slowly, please)”. Even if your Russia proficiency is limited, being able to say these phrases quickly in conversation helps you have better communications!

Posted by Yusei Ando