Communication – this is something we do every day at college and in our daily living with our peers, instructors, family members, etc.

For successful communication, you need to have or use active or good listening skills:

Listening: Effective listening needs concentration and energy. It is not an easy thing to do.

Methods of Listening
Nonverbal listening
Be quiet: silence is more than being quiet, it allows the speaker to breathe and gather thoughts; it allows time to form response
Maintain eye contact: shows attentiveness and keeps your mind from wandering; allows you to observe the speaker’s body language and behavior; if you avoid eye contact, you can fail to see and fail to listen
Display openness: through your facial expression and body position; uncross your arms and legs, sit up straight, face the person and remove any physical barriers
Send acknowledgments: through words and nonverbal gestures to show that you understand and are interested.
Release distractions: if you find that your mind is wandering, then bring your attention back to the act of listening

Verbal listening
Choose when to speak: wait for an appropriate time to respond
Feed back meaning: you can help a speaker to clarify a message by paraphrasing it through summarizing it
Notice verbal and nonverbal messages from the speaker: speaker’s body language may seem to convey the exact opposite of what his or her words do; keep in mind that the same nonverbal behavior can have various meanings across cultures

Replacing “you” messages with “I” messages
When we disagree with someone, we can easily become angry. When that happens, we tend to use words that can be very upsetting and negative or the “you” message (Ex. “You are rude.”). This kind of communication creates defensive results such as “I am not rude; you are rude.”
“You” messages are more like a label, a form of judgment, blame, and assuming things that may or may not be true.
A better way to handle this would be to change “you” messages to “I” messages (Ex. “You are rude” can become “I feel upset.”
“I” message gives a more precise expression of how you feel and your thoughts and feelings.

Choosing nonverbal messages:
Observe tone, posture, the