Summary: The Importance Of Oral Communication

Another from India, Sarpparaje and Phil (2016) found that communication skills are critical in giving confidence, productivity and to unlock future potential in engineers. As suggested above, it is further reiterated that learners be involved more in interactive sessions in classrooms so that they are able to strengthen their communicative competence. Additionally, teaching technical and business communication and technology assisted language learning are areas that should be taken up on a priority basis while learning English for engineering purposes. Thus, designing tasks and activities accordingly would help achieve goals and objectives of the course. It is also recommended that teachers are given enough opportunity for professional development

Universities aim to produce graduates with effective communication skills. Effective oral communication is critical for the advancement and sharing of scientific knowledge. There is increasing recognition within tertiary institutions of the need for science graduates to develop better presentation skills, in particular. The paper addresses the importance of embedding, teaching and assessing oral communication in university science subjects. It also describes several simple and authentic oral learning/assessment exercises. (p. 71)

The various learning tasks discussed in the paper, whilst not meant to suggest that they are comprehensive and suitable for all, provide useful examples that can be of experiences, exposure and training for future scientists. Students and teachers must understand the importance of development of these communication skills and insights through authentic tasks. More such exercises need to be implemented and embedded into the undergraduate science curriculum if tertiary institutions are to train and produce effective science graduates. (p.