Information Technology Code 402 Class IX & X

Class IX
Employability Skills
Unit 1: Communication Skills-I
SESSION 1: Communication Cycle
Exercise
1. List the main components of communication process.
The main components or elements of communication process are sender, message, encoding, communication channel,
receiver, decoding and feedback.
2. Who is responsible for the encoding of the message?
Encoding of the message is done by the sender before sending it to the receivers.
3. Who is responsible for decoding the message?
Decoding of the message is done by the receiver after receiving the message.
4. List 3 scenarios of technology-based communication?
Three scenarios of technology communication are conversation over telephone, online chat and video conferencing.
5. What do you mean by the channel of communication? Give some examples.
The medium of communication is called communication channel such as oral, written, technology-based.

Exercise
1. Describe a scenario where all the major factors of effective communication come in effect.
One such scenario is classroom. Sender and receiver are teacher and students respectively. The mutually accepted
communication code is the discipline in the classroom wherein students will pay attention to what teacher is explaining.
Teachers encode the message i.e., simplify the concept to be taught with her explanation. Students receive the message
and with their attentive mind, try to understand the explanation given by the teacher (decoding). Then teacher enquired
whether they understood the concept or not by asking questions. This is feedback.
2. List any 4 most important characteristics of effective communication.
1. Communication should be clear in content and purpose.
2. Communication should be complete with least scope of questions.
3. Communication should be based on right facts and should not be vague.
4. Effective communication leads to desired output and achievements.

3. Relate a real-life scenario depicting communication barrier of environment.

During summers, a hot classroom is there with students and teachers. Due to the heat, students find it difficult to
concentrate on what teacher is explaining and teacher is also uncomfortable.
4. Give real life example of communication barrier due to personality traits of the communicators.
A person who is not well conversant in English is trying to sell an item to a customer who understands English only.
Another example: two persons from vastly different cultures, say Japan and India, trying to exchange their ideas for the
first time.

SESSION 2: Methods of Communication

Exercise
1. Describe a scenario where oral communication is most effective as compared to written.
Teacher’s explanation in the classroom, a leader addressing a gathering of people, two persons discussing a matter to resolve
a dispute between them.

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2. List any 3 scenarios where written communication is most effective.

Written communication is most effective in formal setups like official orders, legal notices, agreement with terms and
conditions, pact signed between two governments etc.
3. List any 2 major advantages and disadvantages of non-verbal communication.
Advantages of Non-verbal Communication
1. Non-verbal communication complements oral and audio visual communication.
2. It substitutes for the verbal communication like speaking with proper eye contact and tone.
Disadvantages of Non-verbal Communication
1. Sometimes non-verbal communication becomes vague and sends wrong signals.
2. You cannot stop non-verbal communication.
4. List any 3 major advantages and disadvantages of AV communication.
Advantages of AV Communication
1. Use of internet and video conferencing saves cost incurred otherwise on scaling geographical barriers, physical
movement of participants and other related expenses like lodging, food etc.
2. It is an effective way to explain complex ideas and concepts easily.
3. Technology makes it reusable and easy to distribute.
Disadvantages of AV Communication
1. It incurs a lot of cost in infrastructure.
2. It needs maintenance of equipment.
3. Technology and equipment can be complex to operate and learn.

SESSION 3: Communication Perspectives

Exercise
1. Describe a scenario where your visual perspective affected your decoding of a message.
Seeing a man in plain, simple clothes with an ordinary personality, we assume that the person is not very bright and
not sufficiently wealthy while actually he could be a learned college professor earning a handsome salary.
2. Relate an example where you interpreted a message depending on your past experiences.
After receiving a bad response from the customer care persons of the company which sold me a TV, I did not buy air
conditioner from them.
3. What do you mean by prejudice?
Believing the information about someone without verifying the facts and disliking the person accordingly is called
prejudice.
4. How our beliefs, emotions and environment influence our communication perspective?
We relate with people according to our value system and beliefs. During communication, our negative emotions affect
the process badly. Reacting in anger spoils the conversation. Our environment determines how we communicate. When
we are with friends on a picnic, our style of communication is different as compared to that in the classroom in front of
teacher.

SESSION 4: Basic Writing Skills

Exercise
1. Types of Phrase: pleasantly surprised (adverbial), meeting her friend (verb), at the airport (prepositional), had
been sitting (verb), the waiting lounge (noun), Lata spotted her (verb), both shared (verb), a lot of experiences
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(adjective), of their exciting lives (adjective), time flies very fast (noun, verb and adverb mix), boarded the same flight
(verb), bound to Mumbai (noun).
2.
NOUN PRONOUN VERB ADJECTIVE ADVERB PREPOSITION CONJUNCTION INTERJECTION
Girl Her Lived Poor Very much On Who Wow
Anna She Thought New Suddenly In So Alas
Mother Loved Useful To And
Year Thinking Beautiful Which
Gift Sew Long But
Hair Buying Colourful
hair Wished Too old
ribbons
Clothes Buy Shining
Villagers Did Enough
set of Got Short
needles
Threads Called
glass box Said
Money Have
Idea Saying
eve of Removed
new year
Cap Showed
Barber Bought
Selling
Exercise
A. Fill in the blanks with the suitable article:
1. The 2. The 3. An 4. A 5. The 6. An, a 7. An, the 8. The
B. Is there anything wrong with these sentences? Why?/Why not?
“The” will not be used before nouns here.
1. My brother plays cricket. Abstract Noun
2. She likes chocolates. Plural noun
3. Everything that glitters is not gold. Name of metal
4. I returned the book to Ram. Proper noun - Ram
5. Breakfast is ready. Abstract noun - breakfast
6. My favourite colour is blue. Name of the colour

Exercise
Travelling is fun with adventure. It is a good hobby as it presents opportunities to visit new places and meet interesting people.
Travelling lets us make new friends in far places. We get to learn about various cultures, a variety of languages and cultures.
Visit to different places enhances knowledge and we meet different people. It accounts for good health since a tourist is an active
and dynamic person. Travelling keeps us fit. Travelling is also a good career option. One can write about the places travelled and
publish them in the form of books, blogs and articles. When we meet different cultures and people, we develop an understanding
about them. It inculcates good habits such as patience, care, love and concern for others. The overall benefit of travelling is that
it improves personality. The only downside of travelling is that it is an expensive hobby. It needs money to travel to different
places. Food, stay and other related expenses make it an exclusive hobby. It also claims a lot of time.
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Assessment
1. What do you mean by the term Communication? List the features of effective communication.
Communication is a process to give to and receive information from others. Interacting with others while exchanging
information is called Communication. The features of effective communication are:
• Effective communication is clear, complete and based on right facts.
• In written form, communication is be concise and to-the-point.
• Good communication develops relationships, promotes confidence and creates goodwill.
• Effective communication leads to desired output and achievements.
• Effective communication establishes responsibility and accountability.
• It provides right kind of persuasion, guidance and consultation.
2. You need to prepare for a classroom presentation of 10 minutes. How will you ensure effective communication
while presenting?
Following points will ensure effective communication during presentation:
1. The purpose and objectives of presentation should be mentioned clearly.
2. The language of explanation should be simple and correct.
3. Explanation should cover right facts, clearly and in crisp manner.
4. The voice, expressions and gestures should reflect confidence.
5. There should be some time spared for the audience to have their queries cleared.
3. Describe any 2 communication barriers.
1. Barriers to effective listening: We jump to conclusions. Mind gets lost in thoughts while listening. Our emotional
state, our capacity of patience, our temperament, likes and dislikes are common barriers in effective listening. Sincere
and attentive listening is required for receiving and decoding of the message successfully.
2. Barriers related to the personality traits of the communicators: We sometimes exhibit following behavioural
or personal traits which act as barriers to effective communication:
• Behaviour due to age difference, attitude, gender, cultural and social differences etc.
• Proficiency of the sender and the receiver in the language they are using to communicate.
• Ailments, disappointments, personal grudges and hidden intentions.
4. You are conversing with your friend about something important in a roadside open café in a crowded market.
Your friend has to rush to receive his mother from the airport also. What are the communication barriers in
this scenario? How these could have been taken care of?
This is an example of situational barrier. Noise and other distractions are there. Friend is also in rush to airport. These
barriers could have been avoided by fixing a prior appointment with the friend and deciding a quiet place to converse.
5. Briefly explain the terms Coding and Decoding taking a simple example.
Coding or encoding means how the message has been communicated by the sender. If the manner of the message is
rude or offensive or if the message is not clear or incomplete then message is not encoded correctly.
For example:
Authoritative message - I want the report on my table first thing in the morning without any excuses.
Normal message – Please manage to get the report tomorrow for sure so that things are not delayed further.
Decoding means how the message has been interpreted by the receiver.
Authoritative message - I want the report on my table first thing in the morning without any excuses. – here, receiver
feels offended and pinned down. He is demotivated to prepare the report and may not do it by inventing a genuine
looking excuse.
Normal message – Please manage to get the report tomorrow for sure so that things are not delayed further. – here,
message is levelled. It respects the receiver and prompts him to prepare the report.
6. Describe communication cycle with a simple example.
Communication Cycle involves following elements. Communication channel is oral, face-to-face.
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Sender: Your article needs too many corrections and modifications before we send it to print. [Here message is not
encoded effectively]
Receiver: I spent whole night, cutting on my sleep preparing this article. [Here, receiver has not taken the critique
positively. He responds by giving an excuse. (Feedback)]
Sender: We really appreciate your effort in getting that article ready in such a short time but there are certain parts of
it we need you to look at and revise before we get it into print. [Message is re-encoded in a better form after feedback
from the receiver]
Receiver: Okay, let me know which parts and I shall redo it. [Receiver has decoded the message as desired since it was
encoded well after the feedback]
7. How is oral communication different from written communication?
ORAL COMMUNICATION WRITTEN COMMUNICATION
1. It is fastest and easiest hence more effective. 1. Time taking and more efforts are required.
2. Sender and receiver are present in person. 2. Sender and receiver need not be present in
person.
3. Suitable for formal and informal modes of
conversation. 3. Mostly suitable for formal communication.
4. Creates lesser misinterpretation. 4. Written messages have no emotions and
body language involved hence they can be
5. Cannot be used as evidence.
misinterpreted.
6. Cannot be referred to later on.
5. Can be used as evidence of conversation.
6. Can be referred to later.
8. List the advantages of written communication.
• There is an advantage of time for choosing suitable vocabulary and tone of the message. Message can be reviewed
before sending.
• It has legal acceptance in most of the cases.
• Longer messages can be created.
• Can be referred to later.
• Written messages can be duplicated and distributed.
• Effective written messages help building good relations.
• With written messages comes responsibility.
9. List any 4 body language features that influence our communication.
Voice, gestures, posture, facial expressions.
10. Explain briefly how verbal and non-verbal communication occur using Audio-visual aids.
Any verbal or non-verbal communication that involves vision and auditory capability is called audio-visual
communication. For example, telephonic conversation involves hearing while video conferencing involves both sense
of sight and vision.
Such communication is supported by technology. Telephone equipment, smartphone, Internet, visual displays,
speakers, microphones, communication channel, presentation software, models, visual aids, video and audio player
software etc. constitute AV communication.
11. You have to make a presentation on your achievements in school to a global audience including students of
other cities over video conferencing. How will you take care of your effective communication?
Following points will ensure effective communication during presentation:
1. Prepare well and rehearse if possible.
2. Body language should be positive.
3. State the objectives of the presentation first.
4. The language of explanation should be simple and correct.
5. Explanation should cover right facts, clearly and in crisp manner.
6. The voice, expressions and gestures should reflect confidence.
7. There should be some time spared for the audience to have their queries cleared.
12. What are the disadvantages of non-verbal communication?
Disadvantages of Non-verbal Communication
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• Sometimes non-verbal communication becomes vague hence misinterpreted.

• It cannot be stopped.
• It occurs too fast and simultaneously hence difficult to interpret.
• It has cultural and regional differences.
13. Explain the importance of gestures and eye contact while you speak to someone in person.
Gestures: Gestures make the major part of our body language. Gestures that occur in the control of our subconscious
mind convey our state of mind like Movement of hands, fingers, legs. Gestures made consciously are pointing with finger,
nodding, waving, envisaging using hands.
Eye contact: The way we make eye contact tells a lot about us. Right kind of eye contact reflects confidence and
sincerity. Eye contact could be gentle, steady, formal for a few seconds, sweeping, stare or gaze.
14. How does our attitude determine the effectiveness of our communication?
Our attitude builds our behaviour and response to a message. Our positive attitude helps us in relating others easily and
on good terms. This makes the base of effective and positive communication while our negative attitude builds a hostile
environment. We cannot relate with others positively which leads to ineffective communication. A positive attitude
means the person is cheerful, open, optimistic, confident and orderly while negative attitude means stubborn, hopeless,
bad intent and lack of enthusiasm.
15. Describe any two factors that influence our perspective in communication.
Visual Perspective: We judge and make decisions on visual perspective like how someone looks and dresses up. Who
the person is? How important or unimportant he or she is? etc. In accordance to this visual impression, we decide to
develop relationship with the person and communicate with him or her.
Perspective of language: Words have different meanings depending on the context. A good listener catches the
meaning and intent. Language and figures of speech give different meanings to the message. Synonyms and idioms
change our perspective. We should understand the message in its context.
16. What care should we take while we meet and talk to a person for the first time?
First, we should ensure that the environment and surroundings are suitable to communicate. Our perspective helps us
understand people and situations. Our perspective determines how we encode a message as a sender and how we
decode it as a receiver. While communicating with others we should use the simple ad suitable language, we should not
judge the person through some preconceived notions, our attitude should be positive, and we should not carry any
prejudice based on our past experiences. We should also show emotional intelligence.
17. Ravi met a few people in a party and was mixing up well with those wearing expensive clothing and fair
complexion. Which factors are influencing Ravi’s perspective towards the people?
Visual perspective.
18. How do our past experiences shape our communication perspective? Cite an example.
Our personal experiences help us develop perspective. If I have a disappointing experience with a service company,
I shall avoid using the service of that company in future. Any positive experience helps us meet and relate with people
positively.
19. How is a phrase different from a sentence? Give 2 examples.
A set of words that indicates some object or action but does not makes complete sense is called a phrase while a group
of words that makes complete sense is called a sentence. For example:
Phrase: a beautiful frock Sentence: She is wearing a beautiful frock.
Phrase: is eating Sentence: Raj is eating a mango.
20. Giving 2 example each, explain Noun, Adjective, Verb and Adverb.
Noun is name of a person, place, thing, event, animal or idea. For example, Suman goes to school. I am reading a book.
Verb is any action or state of being. Like, Suman goes to school. I am reading a book.
Adjective describes a noun or pronoun. E.g., I am reading an old book. He is wearing a red cap.
Adverb describes a verb, another adverb or adjective. E.g., He walked down the hill quickly. He looked at her angrily.
21. What is preposition? Give 4 examples of preposition.
Preposition shows the relationship of one noun, pronoun or noun phrase with other. For example, the dog is sitting
under the table. There are two birds in the bush. I kept the pen on the table. There is a mango among the apples.

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22. How does articles differ in usage for consonants and vowels? Explain with 2 examples.
Article ‘an’ is used before vowel sounds and ‘a’ is used before a consonant sound. For example, He eats an apple daily.
Butterfly is an insect. They bought a book. I saw an aeroplane.
23. Cite 4 examples where article ‘The’ should not be used.
Gold is an expensive metal.
Both Ravi and Raj went on a picnic today.
I like to eat fruits once a week.
I selected some fresh fruits from the basket.
24. What are the basic rules of good paragraph writing?
1. The topic on which the paragraph needs to be written should be clear.
2. A paragraph should begin with the topic sentence.
3. Major part of paragraph should include the sentences which elaborate on the topic more.
4. Paragraph should end properly with a closing sentence or conclusion.
25. What do you mean by interjection and conjunction? Explain with 2 examples each.
Interjection reflects strong emotions, followed by exclamation sign (!). Like, Oh! Hey! Wow! Alas! Etc.
E.g., Hey! Where have you been so long? Wow! This idea of picnic sounds great.
Conjunction connects two words, phrases or sentences. Like: so, but, and, or, therefore etc.
E.g., I would have loved to come for the party, but I have my exam tomorrow.
He was down with fever, so he didn’t come to the school yesterday.
26. Write a paragraph to describe a train journey you took last.
On our summer vacations, we planned to catch a late evening train to reach Lucknow overnight. On the day of journey,
it was raining heavily. We took a taxi to the railway station. As we reached near the railway station, we got stuck in a
thick traffic jam. Afraid of missing our train, we paid to the taxi driver and rushed with our luggage on foot towards the
railway station in the heavy rain. Completely drenched in water, when we reached the railway station, found that train
was already late by half an hour. We changed our clothes in the wash room in the waiting room. Finally, the train arrived,
and we boarded the train. We reached Lucknow the next day early morning welcomed by a bright and pleasant weather.
27. You need to write an essay about your favourite leader. Which basic writing skills would you apply in doing so?
An essay includes more than one paragraph. We need to apply follow basic writing skills:
1. Correct usage of grammar.
2. Give brief introduction about the leader, describe his qualities as a great leader, his achievements and failures
too. How he learnt from his failures. How he influenced people positively and other important incidents of his
life.
3. Keeping the sentences simple and short.
4. End the essay with a brief conclusion.
28. Identify parts of speech in the following paragraph:
NOUN PRONO VERB ADJECTI ADVER PREPOSITIO CONJUNCTIO
UN VE B N N
Deforestation These Remove Large Never In When
Humans Clear Or
Forest lands Clearing And
Areas Is Since
Ecosystem Are
Trees Replanted
Animals Destroyed
Living things Endangered