NEW PROFESSIONAL (6-WEEK) EVENING COURSE

Effective communication is the key to the success of any company or organization, as well as personal interactions, and good communications training is in great demand by today's students. There are excellent career opportunities in both the Public and Private Sectors, for those with good creative, analytical and inter-personal skills who can demonstrate their ability to develop, communicate and implement ideas and concepts. This programme has been designed for those with an interest in communications who seek a recognised qualification to enhance future employment prospects and career progression.

Areas covered include:

Advertising & Publicity:
Direct advertising, classified advertisements, display advertisements, content & style of advertisements, direct mail advertisements, radio & television, press releases, articles.

Manual, Instructions & Form Design:
Booklets and handbooks, procedure manuals, instructions of equipment use, Job Instructors’ Manual, written instructions, form design.

Meetings & Their Documentation:
Notice of a meeting, agenda, agenda papers, Chairman’s Agenda, recording meetings, writing up minutes, the Minute Book, writing meetings reports, the main types of meetings, rules governing meetings, what the rules cover, procedures and conventions, Chairmanship, the role of the secretary. Committee members, presenting a case, speeches and lectures, the art of acting, preparing the speech, visual aids, delivery, stance, answering questions.

Spoken Communication:
Telephone techniques, dictating, interviews, selection interviews, interview techniques, assessment, applying for employment, other interviews, appraisal, reward review, counselling, grievances, reprimands, dismissal, termination, the effectiveness of interviews, radio and television interviews.

The role of Audio-Visual Aids:
Choosing your media, basic techniques, the media. Thinking & Planning: The thinking process, thinking techniques, developing reasoning, considering the recipient, planning, sample plans.

Language:
The wrong words, emotive language, too many words, the fog index, the right words, style and tone, sentence structure, paragraph structure, reference books, listening and reading.

Correspondence & Reports:
Letters, memoranda, varieties of report, compiling a report, summary, terms of reference, procedure, collection of information, questions to be asked, recording the information, analysis of the findings, searching for solutions, conclusions and recommendations, illustrations, appendices, writing the report, revision and editing.

Summarising:
Uses of summarising techniques, note taking, brief summaries, longer summaries.

Non-Verbal Communication:
The nature of Non-Verbal Communication, behavioural patterns, the effect on spoken communication.

Charts & Graphs:
Tables, line graphs, supply and demand curves, the ABC or Pareto Curve, breakeven charts, Z Charts, bar or block charts, Gantt Charts, histograms, frequency polygons, pie charts, pictograms, cartograms, scatter diagrams, activity charts & flow charts, decision tables & algorithms, organisation charts.

Analysis & Interpretation:
Applications at work, effective approaches, examination questions, the nature of comprehension questions, method, general advice and types of questions.

External & Internal Communication:
Internal & external communication, contact with the public.

Management Communication:
The need to improve, structure and line communication, the place of informal communication, the choice of media, the effect of communication on human interaction.

Information Technology:
The technological developments already in use, developments foreseeable this century, effects on the process of communication, effects on advanced technology on communication.

Core Text: ‘Mastering Communication’ By Nicky Stanton (Palgrave – ICM)