English Communication Skill: Asking Questions- The Power Tool

As you intently listen, you make an enlightening discovering.  Sometimes the person is not giving you the information you need.  The chief tool of the good listener is a good question. Questions are wonderful tools for stimulating, drawing forth, and guiding communication.

Asking good questions is a learned skill requiring years of learning and practice.  The foundation of good question-asking is knowing what information you want.  I like eight guidelines for asking better questions – questions that are likely to get to the heart of the matter.

1. Plan your questions in advance. Prepare what you’re going to ask about. Outline your purpose and a sequence of questions.  If you plan ahead, you can follow the speaker’s line of thought and gather much more information.  Pretty soon, the speaker is comfortably sharing information.  In the American culture, the question-and-answer format acts as an aid to good communication.
2. Act with a purpose. Every question you ask should have one of two basic purposes: to get facts or get opinions.
3. Tailor your questions to your listener. Relate questions to the listener’s frame of reference and background. If the listener is a technology person, use technology examples.  If the listener is a teacher, use school and teaching examples. Be sure to use words and phrases the listener understands.
4. Follow general questions with more specific ones. The specific questions are called “follow-up” questions.  This is where the depth of the information lies.  This is also the way people think – from general to specific.
5. Keep questions short and clear – cover only one subject. People have to process your question, so keep it simple and easy to understand. If you really want to know two different things, ask two different questions.  Crafting short questions takes more energy, but the effort is worth it.  Often the other party starts talking to you about the subject, and you can drop the questioning at that point.
6. Make transitions between their answers and your questions. Listen to the answer to  your first question.  Use something in the answer to frame your next question.  Even if it takes you off the path for a while, it leads to rich rewards because of the comfort level it gives to the person you are questioning.  This approach also sounds more conversational and therefore less threatening.  This is also why experts recommend you to plan your questions and not memorize them.
7. Don’t interrupt; let the other person answer the question!

Be sure to watch our English Speech Tips videos and Accent Reduction Tip videos  for more English pronunciation and accent reduction exercise.

How to Begin the “Reconnection” Call

Here are examples for first greetings for the reconnection call:

“Jim, this is Anna Jones.  We  sang together in the Sun Valley Choir at the Peach Festival several years ago.”

“Elizabeth, this is Mark Carlson.  We used to work together at  ABC Associates.”

“Steve, this is Jennifer Higgens; used to be Jennifer Yale, from the Center for Community Resources.”

“Caroline, this is Bill Harper.  I met you last spring at the  Medical Associates Conference in San Francisco.”

English Communication Skill: Ask the Critical Questions to Clarify Pesky “Relative Words.”

Here’s an important situation to ask questions – when people use relative words.  Relative words are nonspecific descriptive words which only have meaning in relation to something else.

Here are examples of relative words that can create a great deal of confusion:

• Cheap
• High quality
• Large
• Many
• Soon
• Substantial

Don’t be shy about asking clarification when someone uses one of these words.   If the person insists on using generalities, as some people do, press for a range.  If you still don’t get a specific answer, supply two or three ranges and ask the person to choose one.  For example, you can say, “Do you mean more like 20, or maybe a hundred, or a thousand?”

Be sure to watch our English Speech Tips videos and Accent Reduction Tip videos  for more English pronunciation and accent reduction exercise.

The “Reconnection” Call

Cultivating connections is part of the spice and joy of life.

The reconnection call is a call to someone you have not talked to in a while.  Your purpose  is  reconnecting, reestablishing the relationship , and getting an update on what the other person is doing.

You can start out by acknowledging that it has been a long time, then expressing an interest in catching up.  Even if it feels awkward at first, most of the time the relationship can be reestablished fairly quickly.

English Communication Skill: Effective Listening Needs Questions

Effective listening requires asking questions.  No one says everything you want to hear in the optimal order, depth, and detail that you are wanting.  You have to ask.  Questions are a way of getting the information you want or need.

In the American culture, our etiquette prohibits us from  barraging the other person with rapid-fire questions.  In American etiquette, questions are not confrontational, but simple easy-to-understand questions designed to elicit specific information.

Ask questions to battle jargon.

Don’t be shy or embarrassed about asking someone to clarify a statement which has an unfamiliar word or acronym.  Many people use jargon or language of their profession when they talk.  Be sure to ask the meanings of those words.

A slightly more difficult situation arises when you are in the same industry and the other person assumes you know the meaning of words that he or she is using.  You may feel embarrassed to ask for the meaning under that circumstance because you think you should know.  There are a few good ways to handle this situation.  My favorite response is this statement, “Just to be sure that we are using our vocabulary in the same way, tell me exactly how you define ABC.”  When the other person defines a term for you, you can respond:

• That’s great. We use the phrase the same way.
• Glad I asked; we use that phrase a little differently, but we can go with your definition.
• I just learned something new.

If you think the other person is using the term drastically different than you are accustomed and some real damage may be done if you use the word their way instead of your way in a negotiation, say “We should define that term in the written agreement so others won’t get confused.  You and I know what we are talking about, but we want to be sure that everyone else does, too.”  Don’t get into a battle over definitions.

Be sure to watch our English Speech Tips videos and Accent Reduction Tip videos  for more English pronunciation and accent reduction exercise.