Speaking and listening

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Speaking and listening is by far the most widespread form of communication even in the most literate person's life. In most jobs people spend much more time speaking, listening and discussing than reading or writing, so it's worth knowing something about how it all works, and using that awareness to increase confidence and effectiveness. Talk is an important medium for getting things done, but equally important is the ability to listen carefully and both act and reflect on what is heard.

Many adults will not have received explicit teaching in speaking and listening before. But they will have a lot of implicit knowledge and experience - in some cases in quite specialised fields. Improving skills in speaking and listening can be about getting better at what you do, and also learning to extend what you do to other contexts.

The literacy teacher's role is to focus on improving communication skills, but the teaching will inevitably take some people into new territories. It is hard to make people better communicators in a purely instrumental way; as people get better at it, they tend to find they have more to think about and more they want to say!

"I feel better about talking to my child's teacher now because I can speak the same language."
From 'Keeping up with the Kids', Basic Skills May 1999, BSA

"In the workplace literacy and communication skills had to be demonstrated in 'real time'. There was usually no dummy run. Communication in different modes often took place virtually simultaneously and always had a real audience. Whatever the job and level of skills demanded, the ability to produce what was required in terms of communication was part of doing the job properly."
QCA, 1999, Talking, Reading and Writing at Work

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