Activity 4-3:
My Communications with Parents
Purpose:Participants will examine how they prefer to receive and give out information. They will use this information to reflect on how communication can best proceed between two people who may or may not share a preferred communication style.
Materials
Handout 15
Process
Assign participants into pairs. Give each participant a copy of Handout 15,
Communication Styles. Direct the participants to complete page 1 by themselves.
They should then work with their partners on page 2, which guides them in interpreting
their responses and also presents discussion questions.
Debriefing
Begin by asking participants what the exercise taught them about their preferred
communication style. Did it confirm something they already knew?
Some participants may say that the results were not conclusive (for example, if they circled items from two or more quadrants). It could be that they are equally comfortable with more than one style of communication. It also could be that this brief exercise simply doesn't work for them. Ask these participants if they have a sense of their preferred communication style despite having no "answer" from this activity.
In your discussion, cover the following points:
- Reading, writing, listening, and speaking are four of the different ways
we communicate. None is "better" than the other. They are all useful, and
they are all used by nearly everyone. Which style is most appropriate for
a given situation depends on the preferences of the people involved and the
circumstances.
- A person's preference for communicating is simply that - a preference. It is not tied to intelligence or ability. Some people may believe (or may have been taught in school) that communicating by speaking and listening is not as "smart" as communicating by writing and reading. That is not true. Intelligence is in the content of a message, not in the particular style that is used to communicate it.At Head Start, all four modes of communication are used. Staff need to be sensitive to the fact that just as they have communication preferences, so do individual parents. Staff can make their communications with parents more effective by being aware of both their own and others' preferences.
- What if someone whose preferred style is writing needs to communicate with someone whose preferred style is listening?
- What if someone whose preferred style is speaking needs to communicate
with someone whose preferred style is reading?