10 characteristics of oral communication that help you dominate

Before getting to know the characteristics of oral communication, let us examine what the term “characteristics” mean and why is it important?

For a better demonstration, let me take you to the scene from the movie “The Karate Kid.” Starring “Jackie Chan” and “Jaden Smith” released in the year 2010.

Jaden is a fun-loving child who just migrated to Beijing, China. Unfortunately, he messes up with the wrong guys who are good with their Karate skills and often misuse their skills to bully Jaden.

During one such incident, Jaden meets Jackie Chan, who saves him from the bad guys. Mesmerized by Jackie Chan’s Karate skills demonstration, he joins him as a student to learn Karate.

Jackie chan makes him perform a set of actions that does seem to be part of any Karate learning skill. Repeating the mentioned actions for a couple of days, Jaden asks Jackie chan when he will teach him the actual karate moves. For this, Jackie chan asks him to practice more.

Fed up with the unrealistic learning, Jaden becomes furious at Jackie Chan. Jackie chan asks Jaden to demonstrate the actions he practiced and tries to hit him. In the demonstration, Jaden notices himself defending successfully from Jackie Chan.

Jaden realizes that the unrealistic moves he practiced have led him to the actual karate moves. Not only that, but the simple actions have also increased his inner strength, stamina, and his muscle power. 

To become skilled at Karate, one must acquire inner strength, stamina, and good muscle power. These are a few essential characteristics one should have to learn karate skills. Which is what Jackie chan was trying to teach him.

Subsequently, he practices other essential characteristics such as focus, patience, concentration, etc. and becomes skilled at Karate. Finally, beat the bad guy in a karate tournament and become champion.

Now coming back to our learning, the main takeaway for us in the story is having awareness and command of the essential characteristics of skill can make us better at it.

So, we can dominate others by knowing the characteristics of oral communication and get command over it.

Since we are clear with the importance of characteristics of oral communication, let us learn them.

Characteristics of oral communication

Pre Planning

The first characteristic of oral communication is pre-planning. Before communicating, one must plan the process of communicating the message to reach the audience.

Certainty

One must be clear about the message he delivers to the audience. Communication messages should always be backed up by research, facts, and statistics.

Having certainty will not only give confidence to the speaker but also gives clarity to the audience.

Conciseness

Collection of the message to deliver is one part of the activity. The importance lies in how it is delivered. Structuring the logical sequence of the presentation to deliver the message will improvise the effectiveness of the message.

Attractive Presentation

An image can speak much better than a thousand words. 

As a presenter, an attractive presentation can support you to deliver a much complete and better message than the one without it. It helps you give the cue points to arrange and structure the points to present before your audience.

By visual presentation, your message can be effectively and accurately reached and understood by the audience.

Consideration of the Receiver or Audience

Knowing your audience is one of the critical aspects of planning your presentation. The elements like age group, background, demography, habits, and culture of your audience can help you communicate as one among them.

Speaking your audience tone will drive your audience to take action you intend them to.

Neutrality

Maintaining neutrality is a critical aspect of speech delivery. What is the point when someone does not understand what you say? You must be aware that your audience could come from different backgrounds.

They may include elder, younger, native, foreigner, educated, and uneducated. They all may not understand at the same phase at which you speak. They may not be familiar with the vocabulary you use. They may not be familiar with the way you pronounce the words. 

One must practice neutrality in his accent, phase, and vocabulary to reach his audience effectively.

Realistic

One must feel what he says. One must mean what he says. Being realistic with your speech will help you gain the trust of your audience.

If you do not feel honesty with your message, you cannot get anyplace within your audience. 

So be genuine in your message. Realize your message before you convey it to your audience. You cannot keep your audience hooked to an unrealistic message.

Error Free

I am sure we all agree that appearance plays a vital role in making an opinion about any person. The same goes for your speech as well. You might be wondering how your communication could create a visual impression? 

Well, it is not communication that gives such an impression. Your visual appeal, the presentation, and any visual aspects of your speech could give that impression.

So please be as error-free as possible with all your visual elements used for your speech or presentation.

Patience

Not only for learning Karate, but patience is also essential for oral communication. One must be patient while researching the topics, facts, and audience. Understanding your audience during speech also requires some patience. 

While listening to your audience’s queries, one must be patient enough to observe their points. Before responding to your audience, you must process your points patiently and then deliver them accordingly. 

Emotion Free

One must learn to be prepared to face all types of audiences. Not all audiences may agree with you. Not all audiences may like you. 

Accepting these facts makes you emotion-free. In whatever scenario, learn to respect your audience and their opinion. It will set you free from any disturbance.

Conclusion

So, these are the 10 Characteristics of oral communication that make you dominant once you learn, master, and implement it.

If you want to know more about oral communication, I recommend reading the article “What is oral communication? why is it given such importance?” 

PS: In the meantime, if you are working in a corporate organization, you will be glad to know that we have a separate section for corporate communication itself. If you wish to find out more about corporate communication, I would recommend reading this blog post to begin: “https://englishtalktutor.com/what-is-corporate-communication/“