Whether or not we take a course in communication, there is considerable value in trying to refine our understanding of communication. To demonstrate, I will present two class exercises. In describing the exercises, hopefully some of the jargon common in the communications discipline (for example, encoding, decoding, channel, and congruence) will become clearer, and you will be at least a little more sensitive to trying to verify the effectiveness of your everyday communication approaches.

Exercise 1: Oral Instructions

The first exercise involved oral descriptions of drawings composed of basic geometric shapes. One student (we will call him the “sender”) was shown a simple drawing to describe to his classmates (the “receivers”) who were, in turn, supposed to try to recreate the drawing being described.

However, there were restrictions. There were encoding restrictions on the person giving the instructions: they could describe the image only by using basic terms relating to shapes, lengths, directions, distances, and so on, and they could not use gestures in their instructions. For instance, in the second source drawing, the sender could not say, “Draw a house sitting upon a mound…” but would have to say something like “Draw the top half of a circle. Above that semi-circle, draw a square…” and so on. In the decoding process by the receivers, the option to ask questions of the sender was removed. The channel was handicapped by imposing a five-minute time limit for the descriptions and the drawing.

As can be seen in Figure 1, the resulting drawings are quite varied, although in some cases (particularly the drawing of the cube with a six-pointed star on its face), they do come close to reproducing the source.

Figure 1: Three sets of drawings based on oral instructions. The first (outlined) drawing in each set is the source figure that the sender had to give instructions for. The remaining are the interpretation of the instructions by the receivers.

Exercise 2: Written Instructions

After a classroom discussion of the outcomes, one of the students strongly felt that things would be quite different if the instructions were given in written form. “By taking time to write the instructions,” he asserted, “we would be able to make sure that the instructions are clear enough that anyone reading it would be able to understand them.”

We decided to test his theory by writing instructions for drawing a cube with a six-pointed star on one face. Here are some of the instructions written by the students and the resulting drawings from various faculty and staff.

Drawing 1

(1) First, draw a square. (2) In the middle of the square, make a small triangle. (3) Make another triangle also in the middle of the square just opposite to the first triangle, but it is on the first triangle. (4) Above the square, draw a line parallel to the line of the square and join the sides and form a parallelogram. (5) From the left side, make another parallelogram with the help of one side of the square.

Drawing 2

(1) Draw a square (4 centimetre). (2) Make a six-point star inside square. (3)_Put the name of square ABCD. (4) Take line AB and draw two slanting lines of 1 centimetre from A and B leftward. (5) Give E above A; give F above B. (6) Match F and E. (7) Now take point A and D. Draw a slanting line of 1 centimetre upward. (8)_Give the name G. (9) Match F and G.

Drawing 3

Please make a diagram with the help of the following instructions. (1) First, make a square (which has all four sides at 90 degree angles). (2) Next, on the upper side and right side of this square, increase a line which will join. After joining, it should look like a cube, but only on upper and right sides. (3) Then, within the box, make a triangle which has 60 degree angles from both side lines; one line should be as a base line. (4) In the next step, make the same triangle but opposite on the first triangle, which should have five points.

What Went Wrong?

In the discussions following both exercises, there were a lot of attempts to explain why things did not go as expected. When discussing the experience giving oral instructions, some criticisms included the restrictions, which some argued were somewhat arbitrary. Yet, we deal with such restrictions regularly. Many of us, for instance, rely on text messages (or services like Twitter) for a considerable amount of our communication, and these messages are restricted to less than 200 characters. An organization preparing a television or radio advertisement has to work within a limited time frame, somewhere between 10 and 30 seconds. When writing a classified advertisement or a newspaper advertisement, you are likely to be restricted by the number of square inches of space your advertisement occupies.

In other instances, the receiver was simply confused. In the second drawing example for written instructions, the receiver got stuck trying to figure out how to draw a six-pointed star: around her paper there were many star scribbles, but they were all the more typical five-pointed star that we would be inclined to draw if someone had asked us to draw a star. In the end, she did not have enough time to complete her drawing. While the sender would have interpreted her message as being clear and direct, the receiver clearly needed some supplementary instruction.

There were also cases where the instructions were not congruent. In the third drawing example for written instructions, the sender tells us to draw two overlapping triangles, but then tells us that the resulting shape should have five points. Similarly, in the first drawing example, the receiver felt most confused by the fifth instruction. The fourth instruction did not specify which direction the parallelogram should be oriented. After she had already drawn what she interpreted as the fourth instruction, the fifth instruction did not seem to be in congruence with what she had already drawn.

It is also interesting to note that it is difficult to say whether people were right or wrong in what they drew. Most of the receivers would strongly assert that they drew according to their interpretation of the instructions that they were given. From that perspective, what they drew was correct. Many senders, on the other hand, did acknowledge that they had not tested their message to see whether it conveyed what they intended. A few of them also admitted to “cheating” a little by being close to the receiver and reinforcing the written statements by providing supplementary oral instructions.

What Can We Learn From This?

Perhaps the most important message from these experiences is that we should not assume that our communication is effective. Rather, we should try to build methods into our communication that try to confirm that the receiver has understood our message. (In teaching parlance, this is commonly referred to as a comprehension check.) Often, these are simple questions or brief activities presented to the audience to verify that their understanding of the message is correct.

These experiences also indicate that there is no single channel that is best for effective communication. Most likely, a combination of approaches would be most effective since different receivers have different learning or comprehension styles. Imagine, for instance, how much easier it would have been if we could have simply shown the audience the drawing and asked them to reproduce it. Or how helpful it would be if we could also use gestures along with our words to mimic the act of drawing, thus also helping the receiver to create an accurate drawing.

Keeping these lessons in mind, we should also try to identify what type of communicator we are. For some, their strengths will be in written communication; others might prefer speaking, demonstrating, illustrating, or employing one of the many communication reinforcement tools available to us. Once you have figured that out, practice—both to keep your strengths strong, and to improve upon your weaknesses.

Cross-posted at the Tata-Dhan Academy PDM blog and at Ananda Mahto.

Some of you may have remembered my retreat report from last year in which I interviewed myself. This year, I decided to (predictably) do something different. And here’s what it was:

Here’s a PDF too….

So, why the title of this post? Well, the people in charge of compiling the retreat report books decided to take away all the pretty pictures, retype the text, and delete at least one important line from my report. I understand that it is not “standard format” but I did keep that in mind when I consciously decided to make it fit nicely onto a single sheet of A4 paper–I figured they could just print it out and insert it at the end of the rest of the reports or something, but I guess that would be asking too much.

Grrrr….

Read on to find:

• Do Indians have a sense of humor AKA “Irony over the stinky river….”
• Marina Beach AKA “The sweet smelling ocean spray on Chennai’s shores….”
• Wetwo Brand AKA “Population Control, Indian Style….”
• Submission AKA “Quick, shhh! The Big-boss has just entered….”

Because of my surgery, I wasn’t able to attend this last retreat, which was somewhat unfortunate since I really like the place that the retreat was being held. (You can see some pictures of the location here; I visited some students back in 2007. It was pretty great.)

Although I wasn’t able to attend, I was asked to write a “retreat report” which gets published along with reports from some 350 or more colleagues of mine. I think I’ll have to bring the reports along with me for my long flights that I’m trying to book for the end of this month.

Anyway, I enjoyed writing my “report,” and figured some of you might be interested in reading it, so here it is:

An Interview With Ananda Mahto

It’s always a little bit strange when a writing teacher has a hard time putting things in writing. They are always so helpful to others who are struggling with writing—always quick to offer so many different tips—so, why can’t they just apply the same advice in such situations? Who knows….

But, tasked with writing a retreat report, I found myself struggling to find the right words. So, instead, here’s an interview.

Interviewer: Who are you?

Ananda: Well, that’s somewhat of a philosophical question, isn’t it? I’d say I’m the current composite of all my past experiences, experiences which have been directly and indirectly influenced by a unique mixture of inputs from my family, friends, teachers, colleagues, and… society overall.

Interviewer: Uh. OK. Tell me about your family.

Ananda: Just names? Or something more?

Interviewer: Something more, please.

Ananda: I live in Madurai with my wife, Amy. Amy inspires the creativity and motivation within me. No children—just three cats. Back at my other home in the US, there’s my mother, who I know is dying to have Amy and me return to the US, but who, at the same time has taught me the value of freedom of thought and expression through her continuous support in my activities over the past 30 years. My older brother lives in Los Angeles, along with his wife and son, and my younger brother lives in San Francisco. 

It would take hours to tell you about the rest of my family—especially since I consider my friends and my pets all part of my extended family—but I don’t think that’s what these retreat reports really cover.

Interviewer: OK. Fine. So, tell us about your time in India, specifically at the Tata-Dhan Academy. What brought you here? Do you know when you’ll be leaving?

Ananda: To tell the truth, India wasn’t my first choice; but, Amy got a great job in Chennai immediately after she completed her master’s degree, so we thought we should try India out and see how we liked it. It turns out that we like it a lot here, so as long as the Indian Government keeps issuing visas permitting us to work, we will try and stay here.

Amy introduced me to the Academy. She had attended their “ART of Upscaling Microfinance” programme and passed on my information to a few people. A few months later, I was coming down to Madurai from time to time to observe students during their presentations, and a year later (almost two years ago) I moved down full time and started teaching spoken and written English communication.

Interviewer: So you’re an English teacher?

Ananda: Pretty much. But I also do a lot of other things.

Interviewer: Such as what? What are some of the things you’ve done in, say, the past year?

Ananda: Well, as my education background is in curriculum development and as I have a strong interest in web-based technologies, I have successfully conducted a few online classes at the Academy. I had the support of Rajkumar and Murugan in getting things ready, and Ramya has been patiently learning how to add new lessons and do some of the background tasks like course backups and other maintenance. Of course, the students should be thanked too; since this is a new initiative, there have been several bumps along the way, but they have always been flexible and tolerant.

I also wrote a “style manual” for the Tata-Dhan Academy students. This was a surprisingly big project—there always seems to be something else that needs to be added, but at some point you realize that you just need to get the book published and start working on the second edition, which is one of the projects that I’m currently working on.

My students, though they sometimes make me want to pull my hair out (I’m going bald, so maybe I should enjoy pulling my hair out while I still can), also make me very proud from time to time. So, a few students and I decided to establish a student website where some student work can be showcased. We’ve got photos, videos, fiction, non-fiction, reports…. The list of contents is growing. In the last six months, there has been some 25 posts or so made, which I think is a pretty decent accomplishment for them.

Interviewer: What about some other Academy-related work?

Ananda: I share a cabin with Sangeetha and Jena, and since they are both involved in the Advanced Centre for Enabling Disaster Risk Reduction (ACEDRR), I sometimes get involved in ACEDRR’s work too.

Interviewer: Really? How so?

Ananda: Well, for example, I helped Sangeetha in getting the ACEDRR website to go online, and I offered some design support for their brochure, and some content advice for their 2009 calendar. I’m also currently completing a short book for ACEDRR on integrating disaster risk reduction with development efforts.

Interviewer: Anything else?

Ananda: There’s my work with Shanthi. Last year, I wrote a very brief document on diary writing and process documentation for the students. We’ve redesigned it as a nice little handbook, and this January, we’ll be giving it to the 9th batch of Academy students to help them with their fieldwork.

Shanthi and Sangeetha have both been incredibly influential in my overall knowledge of development work in India. I’ve gotten to visit students with both of them, and in both cases, I’m sure it was as much a learning experience for me as it was for the Academy students.

Other than this work along with my colleagues, a lot of my time is also spent editing work, whether it be from students, other faculty, or elsewhere.

Interviewer: What kind of work?

Ananda: It ranges, really. At the moment, for example, I have a stack of articles waiting on my desk to be edited for Amina so she can put it in Development Matters. I don’t know for sure how much we’ve done for that, but my estimate would be some 30 articles, about 1,500 words each. Suneetha has been very helpful to me getting the first set of corrections made—that helps to speed the process up a little bit. Then there is always other editing work, like advertisements for the Programme in Development Management, brochures, handbooks, letters to other NGOs….

Interviewer: You should establish a team….

Ananda: We sort of have, although at the moment, it’s just Suneetha and me. We don’t have any clever name yet. We’re just called the “Documentation Team.” We had some huge ambitions—like a newsletter for the Academy, an annual journal for the Academy, and regular website updates. Unfortunately, as a time-strapped two-member team, we’ve had a really hard time actually getting beyond helping others with their documentation needs and creating some output of our own. But hopefully some of this can materialize in 2009.

Interviewer: That’s too bad. What are some other challenges have you faced?

Ananda: Some of the challenges are personal, some are professional, and some are a combination of the two. For example, I’m really picky about time. If my students submit their assignment five minutes late, their marks start to drop. And most of my work in the US had similar respect of timeliness. But time here is just different, and obviously I don’t have any right trying to change that. I think it is more reasonable for me to try to adapt rather than expect everyone around me to change, but it does create some challenges and frustrations for me. 

My workplace itself is also somewhat of a challenge. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’m conducting online classes. Well, this is difficult when there is no power, or when the internet is not working. Unfortunately, due to the remote setting of the Academy, these are some of the rough spots which still need to be evened out before we can offer, say, distance education online, or a multimedia language lab.

And, I must admit that, as much as I love my work, I really miss having Saturdays free. I’ve always seen my weekends as my chance to teach myself new things—that’s how I learned web-design, for example—or as a chance to relax with my cats, play or listen to some music, draw some pictures and write some stories, and drink a lot of good coffee. 

Interviewer: You’ve mentioned very “techie” and “artsy” things throughout your interview today. How did you end up teaching?

Ananda: I’ve actually been teaching since I was 21, when I went to China and taught conversational English to master’s students. After that, I worked for a non-profit, People’s Self-Help Housing, where I helped start a pilot after-school programme for children from low-income families.

Interviewer: So, Tata-Dhan Academy sort of also fits your requirement for an appropriate place to practice your work in that you are both teaching and helping to improve the lives of the poor.

Ananda: It does. I won’t lie though. In India—unlike if I were in the US—I don’t think I would have much success working directly with the community. After all, I really can only communicate in English, and in villages, that just won’t suffice. So, to me, the next best thing that I can think of is helping the Academy’s students be prepared with the communication skills they might need in their work in the development sector. DHAN Foundation also reminded me a lot of the NGO I worked at in California, so I was very excited to leave my job as a web-designer in Chennai and take up the opportunity to move to Madurai. Since then, my work has been a lot more rewarding.

Interviewer: Do you ever want to teach things other than English, like web-designing or computer training?

Ananda: I teach English for a few reasons. First, it is what I’ve been trained in, and I think it is where my strength is. Second, it is an important language in India, especially for anyone who has to deal with funding agencies or researchers. Third, my interest in art and computers and so on is a result of my hobbies. Whatever I do in that aspect is from me experimenting with things when I have free time. I do actually help my students learn a lot of these skills while at the Academy—it is part of my “hidden curriculum.” But, no, I am not really interested in teaching those types of courses.

Interviewer: Do you do any other teaching work?

Ananda: I’ve recently been recruited to teach writing to the DHAN Development Professional Programme participants. I have also done some communications courses for some of the short-duration programmes and so on. I’ve also been teaching some of my colleagues at the Academy in the Asian Centre for Skill and Knowledge on Micro Insurance (ASKMI) about how to conduct online courses.

Interviewer: Well, thank you for your time today. Is there anything else you’d like to share?

Ananda: Not really. Anything else you would like to ask?

Interviewer: Actually, there is one question. Why did you decide to use this schizophrenic interview format instead of writing a normal report?

Ananda: I don’t know. I’m just a little bit strange….

Anyway, thanks to Ryan for scanning the insert. There’s one page that was pretty illegible (not Ryan’s fault—just poor design skills) and that was Sam’s rant on why we should all throw away our TVs. So, to save you the strain of dealing with the text in the pdf, I’ve transcribed it below:

TV is Dumb

Am I overstating the obvious? Have you ever been at a party, everything’s going cool, everyone’s talking, eating, etc… Then someone turns on the TV and everything just stops? All the heads within looking distance whip around and all the eyes fixate on the glowing phosphorous tube. Everyone stops talking. They all become one with the TV. How many times have you sat down to watch TV, not to really watch anything in particular, just to what “whater is on”, and you just flip through our beautiful assortment of nothing. For hours sometimes… Maybe stop on Ricky Lake and laugh at other people’s problems… Maybe watch that fantastic Meatloaf video… If TV’s so interesting, why are you whipping around? Sometimes you’ll just realize “Wow, there’s really nothing on. This is boring.” And you’ll go have something to eat, read a book, start a band, whatever you can do when you’re not plugged into the music revolution or the real world of “Cops”. Do you ever feel used? You know the commercials are stupid… They’re so… commercial. But you still fall for them, don’t you? Sometimes you end up in the supermarket and you buy something but you don’t know why. Do you feel hypnotized by TV? Do you feel like the tube is probing straight into your head? A lot of people do, doesn’t this trigger any warning signals in your brain? Has TV and the media led you to mistrust your own observations. Do you really need a scientist to tell you that Mother’s-Milk is better than Brand-X Baby Formula? You knew that already, why didn’t you trust yourself. Do you ever wonder just why you wear deodorant when everyone else pretty much smells the same way you do? Do you feel like you’re just living in someone else’s reality? When was the last time you felt real mud between your toes? How close do you feel to nature? When was the last time you were somewhere and you didn’t see a human-created “reality”? Have you ever read something really important in a newspaper article and then when you watch TV, it’s nowhere to be seen? Can you read through a whole book and get the meaning? (I barely can anymore.) When was the last time you read a book, just for fun? Have you made it this far into my rant? If you have, you can be saved from this. If you want to know more about TV and its effects on society yourself and hear some very convincing arguments on why you should throw your TV away (if you haven’t already) read Four Arguments for the Elemination of Television by Jerry Mander. It’s 9 bucks, but your sanity is worth it. If you’re lucky, you’ll find it at the local library, but some punk probably stole it.

Ahhh…. Rambling incoherent idealistic youth….