Training Communication Skills in the Context of University Teaching

Our private and professional lives are full of communicative challenges. These challenges are multifaceted and range from obtaining information from a government agency, apologising to the teacher for being absent, introducing oneself to a new group, giving a lecture at college, resolving a conflict with a friend, conducting a job interview, to testifying in court or describing one's symptoms to the doctor.

Some of these challenges we handle with ease, while we might be struggling with others even in adult life. In professional contexts interpersonal skills have become increasingly important within the past five decades (OECD, n.d., p.10). Therefore, corresponding skills are important resources – both privately and professionally –  and their structured and didactic sound teaching should be given high priority in all educational institutions.

This Book is intended to help you integrate aspects of communication training into university teaching. On the one hand, it should give you the opportunity to observe yourself in your communication and to get to know the corresponding theoretical background. On the other hand, it offers the tools to give students the space to train basic communication skills. All methods and exercises are selected in such a way that they require as little preparation as possible and, in the best case, can be integrated into existing parts of the curriculum.