Oral communication (23/11)

1. Oral communication: listening and speaking

• When we speak we can make use of periphrasis, gestures, facial expressions, etc.
• When we listen, we do not have control over the speaker (in the flesh, the media, etc.).
• It is obvious that speaking often follows listening. 
• Often, but not necessarily, improvement in listening comprehension will bring with it an improvement in speaking.

2. Oral communication

• Most people learning a foreign language spend more time listening than speaking.
• The listening activity way range from:

                - The face to face understanding of several utterances spoken by one or more other                           persons.

                - To listening to a speech on the radio, TV, internet, when noise in the room may cause                    interference. 

• Oral communication is, as Byrne says, a two way process between speaker and listener and involves the productive skill of speaking and the receptive (not passive) skill of listening. 
• Both speaker and listener have a positive function to perform:

                - The speaker has to encode the message he wishes to convey.
                - While the listener has to decode the message.