Page 146 - Effective Communication Soft Skills Strategies For Success by Nitin Bhatnagar, Mamta Bhatnagar

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The psychological aspects of motives in the act of communication can
be summed up under two headings. This is something which the teacher
has to take into account while teaching. On the one hand, the pupil should
learn how to convert the motives into effective communicative act, how to
apply to nonverbal tasks and make it a part of his nonverbal activities; the
pupil must learn to think about what to say and how to say, as well as learn
to establish a communicative activity, that is to say, an activity, the aim of
which is not only the immediate satisfaction of concrete practical objectives,
but the setting up of constant and mutual understanding, the establishing of
interaction with the members of his or her social group. These are all forms
of communicative activity.
In such communicative activity, the student is not speaking for the sake
of speaking; he or she speaks for a different purpose. Their motives take
them beyond the limits of mere communicating. They say not only what
they have to say, but also as it needs to be said in order to influence or to pro-
mote interaction. In the psychological sense, the teacher helps the student to
insert into the communicative activity a different motivation and direct it to
a different aim—to use language for nonverbal purpose as well as to include
in it a structure of nonverbal activity.
At the psychological level, the mastery of effective communication entails
the constitution of individual operation (arising initially as independent
acts); this is followed by their combination into an integral communicative
act; and finally refining the communicative act according to the situation and
the purpose of the communication. Thus, we see that motivation plays a very
important role for the students’ ‘will’ to communicate effectively; It plays a
significant as well for the teachers to communicate effectively to accomplish
the didactic task, build effective interpersonal relationships, and develop the
desire to communicate effectively in the students’.
Motivation refers to the forces acting on or within an organism to initiate
and direct behaviour. There are three characteristics associated with motiva-
tion. They are- activation, persistence, and intensity. Activation is demon-
strated by the initiation or production of behaviour such as the motivated
student who initiates going to the library to finish a term paper. Persistence is
demonstrated by continued efforts or the determination to achieve a particu-
lar goal, often in the face of obstacles. Finally, intensity is seen in the greater
vigor of responding that usually accompanies motivated behaviour such as
the highly motivated student who studies harder to qualify for a scholarship.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow’s theory is based on two fundamental assumptions:

1. People have basic needs, which are arranged according to a hierarchy
of importance. Only when the first basic level of needs is satisfied

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