Communication Skills

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    Basic academic writing: A reference guide.
    (Research, and Publication Department., 1997) Shumbusho G.N
    Writing is a skill which is not acquired naturally (being the result of maturation process) It is a skill which must be taught and learnt. Any normal human being once born is expected to acquire the language of those around him. Writing however, must be taught formally, It presupposes an instructor (teacher) and a person being taught (learner) in a relatively formal setting It is therefore possible for person to be born, live, and finally die without knowing how to write if not formally taught. It is indisputable among linguistic that language is speech not writing. We normally learn to speak before being introduced to graphic symbols of the language we speak. The most important factor which makes writing difficult as opposed to speaking is the absence of para-linguistic devices. Features such as gestures, facial expression, body posture and intonation are crucial for clarifying the intended meaning. Consequently, a writer has to plan his/her facts very carefully so as to compensate for these para-linguistic features present and applied in the spoken form. My ten years’ experience as a teacher of English for Academic purposes (commonly known as Communication Skills) has shown me that most students in tertiary institutions have a common and serious problem essay writing; particularly essays which are assigned and evaluated by a lecturer. In view of the above, | have tried to help students by writing this reference booklet revolving around what | have observed to be the major problems facing many students. Basic Academic Writing is divided into 9chapters: (1) Pre-writing stage, (2) Essay structure, (3) Paragraphs, (4) Making a good argument (5) Presenting references, (6) Choosing the right words, (7) Punctuation marks, (8) Capitalization, and (9) Grammar.
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    Business communication skills: Students' handdbook
    (Research, Information and Publication Department, 2002) Shumbusho George N.; Mwaijande Francis A.
    This handbook is our contribution to advanced students who are preparing to enter the business world. A glance on the content of this handbook reveals topics pertaining to the most common types of communication students will likely engage in orally and in writing. Interestingly, the book also deals with the type of messages students will need to write in order to get a job of their choice! Briefly, the aim of this handbook is to help students refine their communication skills when they write or speak for a business purpose. Communication is something practiced by all, regardless of occupation or level of authority and responsibility. We all need to improve on this very vital skill, and for this reason, we felt that the choice of the typical business topics will make this handbook achieve its objective mentioned above. We have organized the handbook as follows: Chapter One: defines the terms “business communication” and “communication”. It presents a brief theoretical discussion on communication processes. Chapter Two: deals with oral communication. This has been considered very important because human beings spend much of their time at work speaking and listening to their colleagues and customers than in writing and reading. Chapter Three: is about business letter writing. It discusses the principles of writing business letters and presents standard parts of a business letter. It also provides models of business letters. Chapter Four explains the importance of business report writing. We know that our students once they secure jobs, it does not take long before they are required to produce a report of some kind. Hence we have attempted to discuss the theory of report writing and at the same time provide a sketchy model of a business report written on the basis of the discussed theory. Chapter Five is about business meetings. As in chapter four, our students, whether they like it or not, they will attend business meetings and even chair them. That is why we have provided them with (more important) the procedures when conducting business meetings. Chapter Six discusses the role of interviewing in the hiring of employees. We have considered this topic to be crucial in that over 90% of our students will be employed after having attended interviews. We believe that interview will continue to be the major method by which organisations will continue to use to hire personnel. We should, however, point out here that our today’s students will one day graduate and get employed in various organisations. Once employed, they may be called upon to interview other prospective job seekers; hence they will assume the role of “interviewers”. We advise our students (who will later be our graduates) to read about this aspect from other sources. At the end of each chapter, we have provided some exercises for students to practice the skills learnt in the chapter.