Activities to improve communication skills for students

This blogpost will answer the question; what are the activities to improve communication skills for students? It will be based on topics activities to improve communication skills for preschool children, activities to improve communication skills for early school children, activities to improve communication skills for middle school students and activities for improving communication skills for high school students.

Activities to improve communication skills for preschool students

Following are the activities for improving communication skills for preschool children:

• Guess the object game can be played with children of preschool age. Students are instructed to put their hands in a sac that is full of different types of hard and soft toys.the student is then asked to describe the object that he picks and say aloud how the object feels and try to guess the object. 
• The feelings corner activity enhances the importance of non-verbal communication among students. The teacher sets up a corner in the classroom where several different flashcards are displayed in the forms of smileys. Students pick up a smiley that best suits their feeling for the day. 
• The teacher can play a show and tell a game with the students in the classroom. The students are given to choose an object from the ground/classroom/activityroom in the break time. The object could be anything that attracts the student. The student then has to show the object to the class and describe its quality that attracts them.
• Complete the number chain/ letter chain activity is done with preschool students. Students are assigned alphabets from a-z randomly and letters from 1-10 randomly. The teacher calls out the numbers and students arrange themselves in rows as per the a;phabets and numbers sequence.
• Students can be made to narrate aloud nursery rhymes. One student should stop in between the rhyme and randomly name any other student. This inculcates a habit of active listening and responding among students.
• Students can be divided into different animal names for grouping. They will be instructed to identify their groups by all students calling out aloud the sound of their respective animal and group together. This activity is used for active listening and responding.
• Musical chairs are a great activity for students in preschool. It aids them to be attentive listeners and respond well to the cues.

Activities to improve communication skills for early school students

The following activities can be used to improve communication skills for elementary school students:

• Involve the student in playing telephone. This facilitates the students in learning to carry out meaningful conversations. Prompt the students for opening the conversation appropriately and ending the conversation appropriately. Also facilitate the students in speaking to the other person on the phone as per their relation with them.
• Role play activities are best suited for elementary school kids. Involving the students in their favourite roles and letting them pretend to play with other students helps their verbal speech and cognitive abilities to flourish.
• Reading out aloud while taking turns increases the vocabulary of students and enhances their reading skills and oral communication.
• Extempore speeches make a good activity for elementary students for spontaneous speech skills. They help enhance students’ verbal communication. 
• Writing descriptive stories on pictures provided is another great activity for students to enhance their writing skills and creativity.
• Making small group presentations on provided topics enhances oral speech and presentation skills in students. Students also learn non-verbal skills for better presentation like facing the audience and hand gestures.
• Simon says  is another great activity for elementary class kids to learn active listening and responding skills.

Side Note: I have tried and tested various products and services to help with my anxiety and depression. See my top recommendations here, as well as a full list of all products and services our team has tested for various mental health conditions and general wellness.

Activities to improve communication skills for middle school students

The following activities are recommended for middle school students to improve communication skills:

• Reading out aloud a paragraph from a newspaper enhances a student’s verbal skills.
• Creative writing enhances a student’s ability to imagine and write from their own. It boosts their confidence and writing skills.
• Listen and draw activity inculcates among students a sense of attending to the listener actively and paying attention to the content of the orator.
• Miming games help students understand the nonverbal communication skills and helps them learn how to express feelings with body language. 
• Group presentations among students and feedback sessions at the end of the presentation enables students to learn team working. It also inculcates among them a sense of leadership. It enables them to learn presentation skills, time management and organization.
• Listening to group presentations and providing feedback at the end is a good activity for listening and responding among students. Students learn skills to provide constructive criticism to their fellows.
• Using a dictionary and sharing a new word with class everyday is yet another game to enhance verbal communication of students and increase their vocabulary. 

Activities to improve communication skills for high school students

Following are the activities for improving communication skills among high school students

• Debates are a good activity for students to learn to present their view and difference of opinion publicly in a decent manner.
• Essay competitions are an effective activity  for students to enhance writing skills.
• Inoculation competitions are an effective strategy to enhance student’s verbal skills.
• Movie reviews and documentary reviews are proven to be efficient activities for building active listening and responding skills among students. It also strengthens their short term memory.
• Book reviews are yet another activity that enhances student’s reading and writing skills.
• Group discussions on given topics is an activity to enhance interpersonal and social communication skills among high school students.

Conclusion

This blogspot answered the question “what are the activities for improving communication skills in students?”. We learned that there are a number of different activities that improve reading, writing and oral skills among students. Besides there are various activities that aid students in learning social communication and active listening and responding skills.

Frequently asked questions

Citations

• 5 quick ways for improving your learner’s communication skills https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/improving-your-learners-communication-skills

• Communication activities for middle school aged children https://www.marlborough.org/news/~board/health-and-wellness/post/communication-activities-for-middle-school-students

• 8 methods for effectively improving students communication skills https://wabisabilearning.com/blogs/inquiry/8-methods-improving-student-communication-skills