Can you explain the advantages and disadvantages of oral communication?

Answer 1

Advantages of Oral Communication Non-verbal cues are combined with verbal skills, adding more dimension to the communication experience.

- Is instant and immediate in its conveying and receiving of information.

- Creates transparency, heightening chances of the audience understanding the meaning of the speaker

- Builds self-esteem of both the audience and the speaker.

- Builds interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships by allowing the speaker to interact with the audience directly.

- Almost instant feedback through the body language and reactions of the audience, allowing speaker to gauge the level of understanding and attention given by the audience, as such speaker can alter his way of speaking to accommodate the audience to maximize understanding.

- A good source of entertainment to eradicate boredom. Oral communication is at work everywhere. Verbal chatting is also a form of oral communication.

- Helps to builds the credibility of speaker.

- Allows the audience to judge not only the content of the speech, but also how it is put across in words and whether the speaker is effective and persuasive. Disadvantages of Oral Communication -Unrepeatable - Information retention is difficult, it is harder to store or retrieve. The 80-20 rule comes into play here-the majority of the audience is likely to forget 80% of the information, while retaining only 20%- thus making the speaker's task very difficult. - Selective hearing, receiving information may be distorted resulting in miscommunication. - Audience must be active listeners. - The same words said in different tones may convey very different messages. - Difficulty in finding words to correctly convey meaning in a short period of time. - Some may find it easier to organise information through writing. - Easier to visualise the flow of information? This idea is good but only if the visualisations, eg. ppt presentations, are kept simple, short and to the point for the audience to grasp the idea easily. Presentation of too much written material is difficult to grasp in a short span of time. - People usually take more time to communicate an idea.