The BestMethods for Teaching Excellent Communication Skills

Asking questions

Productive conversations are created by asking and answering thoughtful questions. Asking open-ended questions can help move projects forward, encourage new ideas, solve complex problems and delegate tasks. However, learning how to ask those questions is a skill. Take time to teach students about open-ended questions and be sure to provide plenty of examples. You might devote an entire class unit to a lesson on questions, using role-play activities to help guide the discussion.

You can start by conversing with one student in front of the class. Have students keep track of how many words their peer uses in response to your questions. Alternate closed and open questions. Your first question might be, “Did you like the movie?” Follow that up with a question like, “What did you like best about the movie?” Ask alternating questions for a few minutes. Then, get together with the class to discuss their findings. Have them determine which questions prompted longer, more interesting answers and which inspired discussion. Then have students practice asking open-ended questions in pairs or groups.³

Record and reflect

Watching yourself is an effective way to learn communication skills. If you have the time and resources, ask students to record themselves having a conversation with someone else or in front of a mirror. Then, they should watch the recording and observe their verbal and nonverbal communication. Finally, they should take time to reflect on what they did well and what they can focus on improving.

Here are several additional examples of record and reflect methods:

Record a two-person conversation. Have the participants watch the recording while writing down their responses or sharing their observations out loud

Have students record a short speech by themselves. Record their speech in front of an entire classroom audience. Compare the two videos

Record a video at the beginning of class and another at the end. It can be useful to watch the improvement between the two videos