PARALANGUAGE AND META COMMUNICATION: EMPOWERING STUDENTS THROUGH COMMUNICATION SKILLS

Abstract

In the 21st century the myth around communication skills as an inborn quality has been broken. It is also high time that the education sector in India should become more student centric and produce an intelligent, innovative and independent workforce that can create a niche at the global level and express themselves effectively. NEP 2020 also emphasizes the need to develop globally confident workforce rather than passive graduate and post graduate degree holders. Effective communication skills is now an integral part of one's overall success in different disciplines. It was earlier believed that those who are good communicators had an intrinsic acumen for public speaking and this is an area that can't be developed but now it is not so. Good schools these days give mike practice to even 3yrs old children in play-way schools. They present their rhymes while facing their class right from the beginning. So communication skills will be internalized right from the beginning. While, otherwise so far in the education sector the student use to sit in the classroom as a passive learner and became a tool of receiving information from first period of the time table till the ninth period. The present day education system requires to embed development of effective communication skills. Deliberate and constant efforts along with regular practice will ensure improvement of this skill. Besides, good knowledge of importance of verbal and non-verbal messages, signals, symbols help in cultivating better relationships with peer group, colleagues, family, relatives, customers and business partners. At the global level also we witness how S. Jaishankar gives prompt reply to scathing attacks of international journalists. Power of persuasion, power of negotiation, power of conflict resolution, body language, couple communication, group communication, interpreting others body language, public speaking, conversation with elders, with children etc requires good training right from the beginning. The present paper focuses on the relevance of paralanguage and communication skills in education sector.