Verbal Interaction from Gen Y
Verbal communication is a difficulty for many Gen Y students. We often use role-play to help them script responses to interacting with a freelance business client. Anyone else find another method to help facilitate verbal communication?
I start developing my students' verbal communication skills from the first project. I have them explain their progress on assignments during the various stages of the design process. I also require each project to be presented (complete with a PowerPoint presentation)to their peers. I've found as they become more confident with their work and more confident with the presentation process (I provide a handout with tips) their verbal communication skills greatly improve. I've also witnessed the reason for verbal communication difficulty with Gen Y is due to the lack of knowing what to say and the fear of being judged inadequate.
Vickie,
this is a great strategy as the verbal communication & face to face seem to be some of the greatest skills that are lacking for today's students.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I also have students do presentations. They don't jump right in to discussions. This generation confuses me because one end of it I have as students. I am also a youth leader so I have contact with the younger end of it. I'm starting to realize the teens are better communicators because of the club activities. This has been frustrating that teens are more articulate than the 20 somethings. I need to remember that we are teaching these kids something that the 20 somethings may not have been exposed to yet. Also I need to make sure to include more activities to increase their comfort in this area.
I have my students present their assignments and projects with three main questions that they need to answer about their work. I find that those three questions get them to start talking and then I find that they continue to talk about their work.
I also believe that the lack of verbal communication skills is attributed to their dependence on written communication skills such as texting along with other texting and video social media. This has reduced grammar skills as there are so many acronyms and shortened versions for a word or a phrase. A great example was the sitcom Modern Family where the father explains that he understands the “lingo†of the texting of his kids. The common text of “WTF†was explained as “Why The Face?†Of course this is wrong, but it demonstrates the point.
If you look at a Gen Y’s phone bill, the actual voice minutes are always lower than the text. I have fun with my students as I reminisce of the phone I had as a kid had a rotary dial and took almost a minute just to dial the number. Then our progression to the push button dial – man, the sounds we made with that! Then our technology expanded to the Brick cellular phones to today’s mini computers that have phone capabilities.
I remember when it was about making the electronics “smaller.†But now I am seeing the big large screen phones in the hands of the same generation that was making them smaller… Baby boomers and Gen X. I guess their eyesight is not what it used to be.
