Potential barriers to communication
and how to overcome them:
Language Barriers:
 One of the most significant barriers to communication nowadays is language, due to every
country around the world becoming more diverse, and an increasing number of business
moving into and operating in foreign countries, language barriers are beginning to become
more of an issue. Language barriers simply refers to two people who need to communicate
with one another but don't speak the same language, i.e. one speaking English and on
Japanese.
 That is referring to physical language barriers, although there are other kinds of language
barriers that we can be made aware of for example pronunciation of words between two
people, so one word in a language said one way, can have a completely different meaning to if
you say it another way, like in German it is very easy to say words one way, when actually you
meant a completely different thing. This is an issue that we suffer from in this day and age but
can be easily overcome by using a selection of different solutions.
 Another example of how language can be a barrier to communication between two parties
could be the presenter use of jargon or over-complicated words, by this I mean when
someone uses lots of fancy key terms which you need to know the trade to understand, it
could mean people get lost in what you are saying and don't actually learn what your trying to
teach, this is usually because these terms are un-familiar to the person you are trying to
communicate with so aren't understood fully.
How language barriers can be reduced:
There are several ways which language barriers can be overcome, but personally I think it all
depends on how someone is communicating with someone else, when it comes to face to face
communication things like translators can be used, someone who speaks both languages fluently and
can change the words from one language to a different language with ease. This is the exact kind of
things that business do when they have conferences with representatives from foreign countries who
don't speak the same language, they simply hire a translator to attend the conferences with them to
translate what they are saying.
 The way that people can prevent themselves from miss-pronouncing there words or saying
something the wrong way and referring to the wrong thing would be usually to have some kind of
way of showing people what they are meaning, for example during a presentation, usually people
will have some kind of slideshow or presentation document that they can use with washed down,
more brief written evidence of what they are getting at, therefore the people who they are
communicating with can actually read and see for themselves what that person is trying to say, so if
a slip does happen from the person speaking and they do say something wrong, at least they know
that the people he or she is talking to, wont be taking on incorrect information.
 And the final language barrier to effective communication of using to much Jargon or fancy key
terms can easily be reduced. So the first and most obvious way in which we can overcome this
barrier is to simply cut these words out and find a simpler way of putting things, like in a
presentation, you can explain things more fully rather than relying on a key term which makes it
quicker but harder to understand, although the issue with that is that sometimes these key terms
need to be referred to in order to remain professional, so the way that someone can get around that
is to use the key term, but shortly followed by a brief explanation of what they mean, if they are
talking to someone who might not understand at first what they are referring to.

Distractions:
 As we all know when we are concentrating on something it is very annoying and
frustrating when things that are irrelevant to what we are doing are going on in the
background and start to cause distractions within our work, especially when trying to
communicate to other people, so for example during a meeting, the last thing you want
when in full swing during a meeting is things that are going to attract the attention of the
people that your talking to, more so than what you are talking about. Whether that is
excessively loud noise, people causing trouble like chatting or laughing or a loud lawn
mower going off right outside the room, it doesn't matter, it causes your participants to
become more interested in that than in what your trying to tell them, which is what is
considered a distraction.
 Usually when someone is being distracted they will only take in certain pieces of
information, its usually the things that they have an interest in, and when they hear this
being referred to, they pick up on it, but the main body of the information they are
hearing usually isn’t remembered by the person.
 Distractions are usually at there worst when people aren't fully engaged with what your
trying to tell them whilst communicating, so for example if you were trying to teach a
class of school students a very boring subject like maths, you would find that lots of them
decide to switch off, start chatting or messing around as this is what they are seeing as
the more interesting alternative to listening to the teacher. Although as hard as it is to
believe there are definitely ways in which you can prevent people from becoming
distracted whilst communicating with them explained on the following slide.
How distraction barriers can be reduced:
Distractions surprisingly are quite an easy barrier to get rid of completely or at least reduce it to
make it manageable, there are several ways that you can prevent people from becoming distracted
when you are trying to communicate with them, firstly by being interesting and not boring the
person you are talking to into being distracted can help reduce this barrier, so for example when
doing a presentation, little things like using, video’s, animation and imagery, as well as getting the
participants involved can be very good for reducing the opportunity of distractions taking the
attention of the people you are trying to communicate with.
 A second way that this barrier can be overcome or reduced is by ensuring that what you are talking
about is of interest to your target audience or the individual you are communicating with, by doing
this then you will have the full attention of that person, this is because when someone finds
something very boring or not of any interest to them, they are far more likely to switch off from
what you are saying and act like they are listening, when really there attention is else where, for
example watching what other people are doing or what's going on outside the room. So by keeping
the audience interested in what your saying, by making it relevant can prevent them from becoming
distracted easily.
 The third and final way that distractions can be reduced is by ensuring what you are doing is well
organised and people aren't able to distract each other, the perfect way to look at this is to consider
a school classroom situation, a lot of the time when friends are sat together, they are susceptible to
chatting and procrastinating from the task at hand. So therefore by removing the issue at its source
i.e. Splitting people up so the don't chat can be the perfect way to eliminate, or at least reduce this
barrier to effective communication.

Lack of interest or concentration:
 Everyone is susceptible to becoming very spaced out when they are trying to concentrate
on one thing for a long period of time and things can very easy become not interesting to
an individual, like reading a revision book, and eventually you begin to become off topic
and lose concentration and worst of all don't take any notice of what’s going on around
you, therefore it is a barrier to effective communication because what's trying to be
communicated to a person simply isn't going in. Lots of different factors can influence
how concentrated and interested someone is on one subject for example how well rested
they are, how good they are at listening and how interested in the subject they are being
taught can all be factors that influence how well someone concentrates on what your
saying.
 So a good example of where people may be likely to lose concentration could again be
during a presentation situation which they don't particularly have any kind of interest in
or they don't enjoy it particularly, this is one of the best situations to look at because it is
a situation that is so easy to go off the task, if you don't find the subject at hand
particularly interesting you will easily drop off and lose concentration completely.
 One of the worst things that can happen is when you as a person have to do all the
talking or all the listening, you begin to get bored and go off topic completely so by
getting others involved, it means that its not one voice being listened to the whole time
so people don't zone out and lack interest as much.
How lack of interest barriers can be
overcome:
This situation can be fairly easy to reduce as it only takes a few small elements to prevent people
from losing interest whilst communicating with them, if you are transmitting information to them
and you can see that they are losing interest, the best thing to do is make sure they know the task
they are going to achieve with the information you are telling them, this therefore means that they
know the rewards and consequences of the situation at hand, and therefore they will become
motivated to achieve the rewards and avoid the consequences of failure. For example in a business
conference people may begin to switch off therefore by reinstating the aims of the meeting and
emphasising the goals in interest, they can get people to listen to the more closely again.
 One of the best methods for keeping interested in what your telling them is by using techniques
such as activities i.e. group or partner activities. The reason this is so effective is because it means
that people are becoming involved in what your talking about and not constantly having to listen to
you chatting about a subject, so a good example of this is in a school classroom again, by using
activities throughout your work like class discussions or question and answer sections of your work,
you are able to keep mostly all of the people you are communicating to interested in what your
saying rather than lots of participants completely losing interest in your teaching, not only this, it
means that the people your are communicating with have a chance to voice there opinions, and it
can cause a bit of diversity between opinions and thoughts and make people become really involved
in what you are teaching therefore meaning you gain ultimate cooperation from the people you are
working with.
 A good example of where elements like the above can take place would be during theory lectures at
universities, so rather than having one person dictating information to everyone they could work in
groups and do individual research to make sure they stay on topic and then you as a person achieve
the purpose you set out to achieve which would be to effectively communicate with the people you
need to.

Disability:


Disability is a barrier to communication in many different ways because its something that cant be
avoided yet has to be accounted for and dealt with to the best standard possible. The issue with it is
that not everyone can deal with disabilities whether that’s because they don't have the kind of
resources required to deal with it, or don't have the training or knowledge of how to deal with it,
therefore clearly showing why it can be such an issue when trying to communicate effectively with
people whilst communicating with people. The kind of disabilities that I am referring to here are
things such as:
Hearing issues
Learning difficulties e.g. Dyslexia or Dyspraxia
Learning support required e.g. Reading help
Social issues like not being able to get along with others, or arguing with people
Issues with sight
A lot of the time this is an issue because everyone should be able to participate in something if they
want to regardless of whether or not they have a disability and most people will agree with that, so
they will honour that fact and do there best to ensure that they do help as much as they can,
particularly in schools and businesses. So for example in the classroom setting it is very likely that
someone with some kind of disability will exist, therefore meaning that they will need to be
accounted for rather than just left to struggle, and there definitely is ways that these issues can be
overcome.
How disability barriers can be
overcome:

-
-
-
-
So as I mentioned earlier there are quiet a variety of different disabilities out there that someone may come into
contact with when communicating with people, but of course each and every one of them can be resolved some
way or other. So i am going to look at how each disability I mentioned earlier can be accounted for and dealt with:
Hearing issues: hearing issues are very common nowadays and can easily be dealt with, by using things like
handouts of what you are saying or having someone else in the room with you who can talk one to one with the
person who is only has partial hearing ability can mean that this issue is dealt with, with ease and everyone is
happy
Learning difficulties and learning support required: learning difficulties again are quite common, especially in
school and can make communication between people slow and quite challenging, so things like extra sessions one
to one with people can ensure that all the information that they wanted to learn would actually be gotten through
to them rather than missing out on valuable information. Another method of overcoming this barrier would to be
having an assistant with you when you are communicating with people, so that they can offer extra help if a
particular person needs it
Social issues: this can be quite a challenging barrier to face when you get people who you try to communicate
with but they simply cant relate to what your saying or wont accept what your saying, so to overcome this I think
its very important to let them have there say on the matter and show you appreciate there thoughts, and try and
keep a good attitude towards them, and cooperate rather than start arguments.
Issues with sight: this is definately an issue that could be a barrier to communicating effectively because its quite
hard to deal with, although the best way to deal with it is one of two things, have some kind of accesibility features
to what you trying to communicate, particulalry in a presentation situation, for example handouts with largened
text which the will see more easily, or alternitavely have someone to work with them through tasks task to aid
them were they need help.
Cultural differences:
 Effective communication with people of different cultures is especially challenging.
Cultures provide people with ways of thinking--ways of seeing, hearing, and interpreting
the world. Thus the same words can mean different things to people from different
cultures, even when they talk the "same" language. When the languages are different,
and translation has to be used to communicate, the potential for misunderstandings
increases. So for example in certain youth cultures they may use slang terms or unusual
terminology whilst talking to one another, which they might also say to you, which
means something very different to what it sounds like or what you perceive it as.
 Second are "behaviour constraints." Each culture has its own rules about proper
behaviour which affect verbal and nonverbal communication. Whether one looks the
other person in the eye-or not; whether one says what one means overtly or talks around
the issue; how close the people stand to each other when they are talking--all of these
and many more are rules of politeness which differ from culture to culture. So for
example when speaking to people from England, it is considered a normality to greet
them with a handshake, and then keep eye contact with them if you are talking directly
to them otherwise it is seen as rude to them.
 Cited: http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/problem/cultrbar.htm
How cultural difference barriers can be
overcome:
 Cultural differences are a barrier to communication because you simply cant predict how
someone is going to react to something you might say or you might or might not do, and
you cant predict how someone is going to view you and the attitude they are going to
have about you, therefore it is quite a hard barrier to overcome, although there are a
selection of different things that one is able to do to ensure they have the best
opportunities to avoid issues arising with someone they don't know but have to
communicate with, so now I am going to look at the kinds of things a person can do to
try and make sure they are up to date with cultural differences:
 Background research on the people they are meeting: what this does then is gives you a
bit of an advantage when it comes to meeting them, so by looking at things like where
they come from, what kinds of things are normal and accepted in these countries or
cultures, is there anything you are likely to do naturally that might be frowned upon or
finally how to greet them, could potentially make it much easier to communicate with
them effectively either as part of a group or one to one.
 Make sure that you think about your actions before you act, so what i mean by this is
with some people you are able to do things and get away with it like make a sly joke
about something, or accidentally swear whilst talking to them, although with other this
might not be accepted at all, and can be taken as offensive, therefore, making sure you
think before you act can mean that potential awkwardness and friction between you and
your counterpart is avoided.