So far in CP English 10, I have learned a lot of things about effective communication skills that I did not learn before. Three of the skills that I learned are non-verbal communication, filled pauses and eye contact. Eye contact has always been a problem for me because I have been an actress for as long a I can remember and eye contact never had to be an issue for me up on stage. Plus, it was difficult to because the lights are so bright that all you see is black. Especially when the last thing I would like to do is look at the audience and possibly get messed up while talking. However, making eye contact with the audience is important because it is easier to read their faces. Even being in the audience and making eye contact with the speaker is very important because the speaker will then know if you are engaged/interested in what he/she is saying. When the speaker uses filled pauses, such as um, er, ah, or like, the audience could lose interest in what the speaker is trying to inform us about. I know when I am trying to listen to a speech and almost every word is like or um, I lose interest very quickly. My friend in Honors English had to come up with a beginning of the year speech like we did. She was practicing reading it in front of us in homeroom and every other word she said was either um or like. I tried to tell her not to say like as much but when she answered me, like was the first thing that she said. I have learned a lot about non-verbal communication