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Chapter 3. Communication Skills
CHAPTER REVIEW
Chapter 3 provides guidelines for developing communication skills. Communication skills are
the fundamental basis of the helping relationship. This chapter discusses the cognitive and
affective components of verbal and nonverbal messages, identifies and elaborates the elements of
responsive listening, outlines ten commonly used verbal responses, and examines the use of
silence.
After students learn to differentiate between facilitative and nonfacilitative responses,
they begin to recognize and practice advanced verbal response skills, which can be used in
MAJOR TEACHING OBJECTIVES
1. To provide deeper understanding of the importance of the processes of communication, with
a focus on component elements.
ADDITIONAL LEARNING ACTIVITIES
1. Before beginning the exercises in this chapter, have students generate a list of feelings and
write them on the board. Note how many are positive and how many are negative. Have
2. Discuss with students how gender, age, sexual orientation, race, social class, generation, and
geographical region affect their own and others’ verbal and nonverbal behaviors. How do
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3. Have students watch a non-English language channel on television or turn off the sound on
4. Select a short segment of music and play it in class. Put students into pairs and have one
person discuss what he/she thought and how he/she reacted to the music. Have the other
5. Have students write down ten things they have learned about themselves as a result of the
reading, discussions, and exercises in this chapter. If students are keeping journals, they can
6. Discuss with students the expectations that many clients and inexperienced workers have that
helpers are supposed to give advice. Explain that advice-giving should be avoided whenever
COMMENTS ON EXERCISES IN THE BOOK
Exercises in this chapter help students identify nonverbal behaviors and underlying feelings. It is
important that the instructor helps to create a climate in the classroom in which students feel
comfortable participating with each other in dyads and triads. Furthermore, students must
INTERNET ACTIVITIES
1. Have students review recent e-mail messages they have received from friends or colleagues.
How do they think these communications would have been different if they had taken place
BOOKS AND FIILMS THAT MIGHT BE USEFUL FOR THIS CHAPTER
1. The videotape and CD-ROM that accompanies Basic Counseling Responses: A Multimedia
Learning System for the Helping Professions by James Hutchinson Haney and Jacqueline
Leibsohn (Thomson Brooks/Cole) presents seven counseling sessions. Each response is
2. The DVD that accompanies Interviewing in Action in a Multicultural World, 4th edition by
Bianca Cody Murphy and Carolyn Dillon (Cengage Learning, 2011) provides examples of
MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
1. Processing an exercise involves:
2. Some anthropologists believe that nonverbal communication is ______% (or fraction) of any
communication.
3. In verbal communication one tends to respond to:
4. Cognitive content:
5. By responding to helpee’s emotions, helpers do all of the following except:
6. The four major categories of emotion are:
7. Which of the following statements is true?
8. Which of the following statements is not true?
9. Which of the following is an example of responsive listening to the following statement, “I
think my wife is having an affair”?
10. Responding “don’t worry” to a client:
11. You may be able to recognize your overparticipation in a session when:
12. Desirable nonverbal behavior includes:
13. Additive responses:
14. The client says “I don’t want to continue teaching next year. I am getting absolutely no
support from my principal or from other teachers.” Which of the following is facilitative?
15. Interpersonal process recall is used:
16. Minimal verbal responses include:
17. Asking frequent close-ended questions in a session:
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18. Confrontation can include all of the following except:
19. Summary is a type of:
20. “Why” questions:
21. Silence:
22. Which of the following is a correct pair?:
ESSAY QUESTIONS
1. Would verbal or nonverbal messages be more indicative of underlying feelings? In your
2. Compare and contrast cognitive and affective content of a recent communication. How
4. Your client comes to the session and begins to discuss a fight he had with his wife. What
5. How do incongruities between verbal and nonverbal behaviors affect perception of cognitive
6. What is the impact on the helpee of the helper understanding and responding to the helpee’s
7. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a vocabulary similar to the helpee?
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8. What are the pros and cons of asking questions? (pages 79-80)
9. Are “why” questions typically helpful or unhelpful? Explain your answer. (pages 79-80)
10. Discuss the need to adapt our understanding of nonverbal behaviors to a client’s culture.
11. In your own words, define the difference between a facilitative and non-facilitative response.
17. Give a facilitative response to the following statement. “I have a tendency to binge when I