Skills required by a Teacher in ‘Business Communication’

Abstract

Teaching methodologies in management education have witnessed extensive changes within last two decades. “Business Communication” (referred to as “Managerial Communication” or “Communication Skills” with some universities/ institutions) is one of the most essential and imperative subjects in Management Education. The Teacher teaching Business Communication must possess following skills:

Basic English Inputs, Soft Skills for presentations, team development, counseling, negotiating, interviewing, telephone manners and etiquettes, conducting meetings & conferences, and public speaking-Interoffice memos and Business Letters-Language of Business and Management-Managing Video Conferences-Knowledge of Theatre Techniques with kinesics, vocalics/ paralinguistic, proxemics, chronemics, touchemics/ haptics, artifacts and other non-verbal cues-Role Play-Case Presentations-Group Dynamics and so on. Business Communication Teacher must be technologically updated-Available to the students on Chats, Voice Mails, Mobiles, and through Personal Portals, Corporate and Personal blogs. He/ she should be able to provide input on cross cultural and cross gender communication. He/ she must possess dedicated WAC skills, impactful written communication with ability of conversational, transactional and genre analysis. He should have developed EQ and SQ and a potential to develop the same amongst students with the help of excellent interpersonal skills.

The researcher has designed an extensive “Skills Assessment Instrument” which can be used by a Business Communication Teacher to assess himself/ herself whether he/ she has the skills required for teaching business communication. The instrument makes it possible to identify strong and weak areas of a teacher. The areas in which a teacher is found weak can be improved on his/ her own through committed efforts and concerned developmental techniques.