Tip #1 – Control Your Anxiety; Don’t Let It Control You!

Most of the nervous symptoms you may experience before communicating with someone in a second language are the same as those you feel when excited. To the body, it all comes from the same place – adrenaline. Most simply, adrenaline is ENERGY. If we experience this energy as excitement, we feel good. If we experience anxiety, we feel bad. The first step toward effectively managing your anxiety is to remove the negative association and shape that initial feeling into EXCITEMENT. Believe that you are excited about the opportunity to speak English. Then use your excitement to energize you and help you communicate your thoughts and feelings to your communication partner.

Tip #2 – Be Yourself!

Everyone has his or her own communication “style”. Your style is made up of many different aspects, including your body, voice, face, the way you use language, level of formality, etca. The trick, within your style, is to be more of who you really are, which means knowing and then capitalizing on your greatest communication strengths. Remember, words only account for 10% of your communication power. Your nonverbal delivery style accounts for 90%! To improve your communication experience, focus on the real source of your power—your nonverbal communication such as eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, posture, movement, proximity, clothing, vocal variety, rate, loudness, and silent pauses.

To learn more tips to enhance your English communication skills, contact Bivins English today!

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 6th, 2010 at 7:08 pm and is filed under Communication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.