Teaching: Barriers To Effective Communication In The Classroom

When communications are taking place in the classroom between a teacher and his students, something may go wrong between any components in the communication processes which will act as a barrier to any one of the communications. A communication barrier is defined as "anything which will inhibit or block an accurate communications". Some of the important communication barriers include:

1. In-adequately produced message due to careless message sending: a teacher may be making his explanations very fast, too slowly, too loudly or in a low tone to be understood by his students. To guard against these, teachers should make an effort to improve on their speaking abilities. 

2. Problem of sending information: there are times when teachers send too much or too little information in one message. Teachers must therefore plan and organise their lessons so that these types of problems do not happen. 

3. The problem of noise: this problem some times occurs because of some kind of interference from withing or out side the classroom. For example, a group of students may engage in conversation which will prevent nearby students from hearing what the teacher is saying. Other problems include: shouts,  a favourite song from a radio or hooting of horns of cars passing by out side the classroom. What the teacher should simply do is toss much as possible try to eliminate all the possible noises in or outside the classroom. 

4. Psychological barriers: these could be as a result of day dreaming or fatigue. A teacher may be trying to explain something to his students, while his mind is working out how to solve certain problems. Likewise, the teacher may be making explanations while the minds of some of his students are somewhere else not with him  the teacher or his students may also be tried mentally or physically, they may be hungry, angry or they may be over exited over something etc. A possible way of overcoming such problems is for the teacher to make his lessons very lively and to encourage his students to be good listeners in what ever condition of mind they are. 

5. In appropriate channel chosen for the communication: it will not be appropriate for a teacher to use a diagram where a model will serve better or to use a model where the real thing is available. Teachers should therefore try as much as possible and see that they select the most suitable instructional material for their lessons. 

6. The problem of meaning: it's very important for teachers to realise that, there are words and non verbal messages with different meanings to different students, depending on their backgrounds and experiences. To communicate effectively, teachers must be concerned with choosing symbols which students will easily associate with the meanings they want them to call up. 

7. Inaccurately Received Message: this could be due to careless receiving behaviours by the students. Students may not be listening to the teacher at the time he is making his explanations. They may be looking through the window, talking to their friends, ignoring non verbal cues or stupidly focusing their attention on unnecessary things in the classroom. The teacher in this case should see that all the students in the class are paying attention to what he is saying or doing and he must be aware of students who may be faking attention. 

8. Contradicting Verbal and Non verbal: in most cases verbal communication is accompanied by non verbal behaviourssuch as facial expressions, hand gestures, etc. When verbal and non verbal messages contradict each other a feeling of unease or confusion is aroused.  A teacher may be saying that is good to a student but his facial expression is that of anger. It's always good for teachers to make sure that their non verbal messages March what are saying verbally. 

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