 Good morning. I am Deepak Phatak here and I am here to discuss aspects of non-verbal communication and human gestures which you would have learned through the sessions in the last week. I observed that very few institutions are connected. We will wait for a little while in between if any remote center has any question to ask, the most welcome. People are connecting with it. Nobody is connected yet. There is some center which is this. Let me visit a few remote centers. I can see that people are assembling here. Which school is this? No, this is Amruta School. I can see some people in Amruta Column. Good morning to all of you. Over to you for any initial comments please. Good morning sir. Good morning. Good morning sir. Good morning. Are you waiting for some more students to come in? No sir, this will be it. Okay, okay. So, before we proceed further, because we are still waiting for other remote centers to connect and other groups to connect, if anybody has a remark to make from your side, you are most welcome. Till now everything, all the courses have been going fine sir. So, there is no problem with that. We are waiting for today's class. Okay. Which is the other remote center? I can see one more remote center, R.C. Patel. This is in which place? Good morning to all of you from R.C. Patel Institute. Good morning. So, do you have any comments to make on the last year, last week's content for the course? Okay. They will come shortly. We have few questions, but we will ask while everyone will be present here. Fair enough. We will wait for a few minutes. Yes sir. Please sir. I have a feeling that 930 is proving to be too early for many students, particularly those who have to come from some distances to reach the remote center or to reach the group where they have made arrangements. I suppose we are beaming it live on YouTube as well. Are there any chats on YouTube? So, welcome to those 50 odd groups which are connected on live YouTube. I hope you have viewed the sessions of the week and have familiarized yourselves with the importance of gestures and body language. We will take questions on that aspect and I would make some additional remarks, but I guess we will wait for a few minutes for more people to join in both through remote centers and through the live aviu sessions which are being beamed on YouTube. My colleagues can see a lot of good mornings coming from individual groups tagging on to the live YouTube sessions, but as I said we are monitoring the chat even on the YouTube live and if you have any question or any point to be raised, you are most welcome to do so on the chat session. My colleagues will inform me of the question and I will be very happy to answer or clarify any doubts that you have. We are looking at KLE Institute in Belgram. I can see a lot of students there and there are a couple of people who are looking probably at the aviu screen. Are you having any problem or can you hear me and can you see me? Please raise your hands if our audio and video is clear to you. I can see a question on the chat session by Mr. Shah Majid. The question is what is the impression by listening more and speaking less in a meeting? Good question, but this question will be answered by my colleague Mr. Ashish Pandey who has dealt with that topic last time. So I am afraid you may have to wait for the session at 11.30. However, I would definitely be able to say a little on the importance of listening. Please understand that when we speak our entire mind concentrates on what we are speaking. We are trying to compose sentences and we are trying to utter them effectively and therefore our mind is unable to look at others, their views particularly the expressions on their faces because we are concentrating only on our speech. Now in a meeting we are actually interested in collecting opinions of all the people. If we take too long to speak and do not let others share their views we will be deprived of the wisdom and comments that others have to make. That is the reason why we typically say please spend more time in listening and less time in speaking. It does not mean that you don't speak at all. You do whenever it is your turn but you try to be very precise. Listening is what permits you to collect everybody's viewpoint. You can then churn those views in your mind and actually create a proper model of what all others are thinking about the point being discussed. This is very important because many times certain things do not occur to us alone because we may be thinking from only one perspective but when we listen to others we get to see other perspectives and there could be a point which had never occurred to us or there could be a few points which occurred to us but which we did not consider significant or important. But only when we listen to others we can see the enthusiasm in their voices. We can see the seriousness and their concern when they speak and that will actually enrich us to understand everybody else more properly. In any case, as I said I will leave the particular question to Professor Ashish later in the second session. Are there any other chat questions on this session? Not yet. Ok. We call it Shukta-Bhagwya-Ithnabad. Alright. So while we wait for more learners to join in both from the remote centres as well as through the chat groups on the live YouTube session, I would like to mention a few things about nonverbal gestures which actually accompany some words that we speak. More specifically, I wish to share with you the importance of three words, just three words, but which make a whole lot of difference and create different impression amongst people to whom we are speaking those words. Which are these words? The first word is to say please. In English, please is often used to indicate a request. The second word is thank you. This is a phrase which is used to sincerely express your gratitude for something done in your favour by someone else. And the third word is sorry. The word sorry expresses apologies for any mistake that you might have done either inadvertently or even by design sometimes. Words appear very simple, but the words alone do not carry the complete impression or the complete state of mind behind these words that is expressed by the gestures or the body language. Consider for example, the word please. Will you please give me a cup of tea? It is one way of saying that. A cup of tea please is another way of saying that. Please note that every word that you utter or every phrase that you utter should be accompanied by an appropriate expression on your face and the gestures of hand in order to communicate the exact feelings that you have behind speaking that word or phrase. It is such gesture which will tremendously increase the importance and impact of whatever you are saying in the right way. And that is the reason why I say that we should use not just these words and phrases, but anything else that we say along with appropriate gestures. This has been elaborated in various video sessions in the last week and I am sure that you have looked at them. But looking at them is one thing. Practicing them is another. I specifically mentioned these three words and phrases namely please thank you and sorry because while the western world uses these phrases very often in India unfortunately we do not have a strong tradition of using these words in our normal conversation with people. Please note that these words are important to the listeners only if they carry the same meaning which is indicated by those words and that meaning is very often visible on your face and through your gestures. So the first thing I would like to tell you is that while preparing for the corporate world you must understand the importance of using these phrases regularly in every conversation. So you have to practice this by speaking to each other. Consider you are asking a friend for something. Is one way of saying it and I have seen that being used very often amongst friends. But the correct gesture even amongst friend is please will you pass me that book. This kind of courtesy is considered absolutely important and paramount in any corporate interaction. In the corporate world in any office that you work even amongst your own colleagues you are expected to display these kinds of courtesy because if you do not do so with your own colleagues it is unlikely that your body and mind is practiced enough to do it when dealing with others and less known people or even unknown people. So my suggestion is form a group of three or four people or five people or ten people and start a conversation. You can consider this to be some kind of a practice session amongst yourself. Ask somebody to record preferably a small video recording or a clip using your mobile or at least a voice recording. After five to seven minutes of such brief discussion please listen to the recorded audio and find out how many times you have used please thank you and sorry. It is my guess based on my own experience over last forty five years that in India we hardly ever use these words amongst our friends or amongst the group of people that we deal with and that is because these do not form an intricate part of our culture. When we request someone it is assumed that the request will be understood as a request. It is not so in the corporate world. So please ensure that whenever you are asking anyone known or unknown friend or even brother or sister please learn to say please. This pleases people seriously and follow it up with the appropriate gesture. You should say please or please get this thing done. Please bring me that chair. Please give me a glass of water. Never ever make a request without the word please. It requires some practice and as I said you cannot practice alone. So you need to work in small groups and set up a conversation on any topic. The next word is thank you. If someone gives you a glass of water and if you just take that water and drink it well your work is done and perhaps that person also does not expect anything more. But please understand that both in the corporate world and in major parts of the world even otherwise saying thank you is considered a minimal courtesy. So even in a hotel if you ask for a glass of water and the waiter brings you the glass and keeps it on your table you will probably let the waiter walk away without saying anything because you presume that the waiter is simply doing his or her duty. Well yes the person might be doing the duty yet since a glass of water is given to you it is mandatory on your part to say thank you. All that you need to do is if the glass is given to you in your hand you just pick it up look at the person and say thank you or if the glass is kept on the table by the waiter before the waiter turns his face away from you to move away you should visibly look at him and say thank you. You might think that I am making too much out of a simple phrase or a simple word. Please remember friends it is not so. The entire world considers appropriate use of these phrases as absolutely mandatory. In fact in most of the corporate life if for such simple things you do not say thank you you are likely to be considered a very rude person which you are not. You do not intend any rudeness after all when you do not say thank you. But if you say thank you it actually conveys the feeling very properly to the person and remember with the word your smile your face your hands those gestures will be equally important. So you say thank you and not just thank you. Moving around with a stiff upper lip is not considered a good idea. Your face should always be full of expression preferably a smiling face you can acquire this by some practice. As I said a group exercise of some kind is the best but even better is when alone stand in front of a mirror and try to say these and other phrases and try to see what is the expression on your face try to see whether your hands are showing an appropriate gesture commensurate with the words that you are using. While I am saying all of this in the context of three simple but important words please thank you and sorry the same thing applies for anything else that we speak. I think I had mentioned in one of the sessions that when I became a teacher I used to practice giving talks or lectures delivering lectures to my students and this practice I used to do in front of a mirror. I had a small tape recorder in which I would record my lecture and then listen to that lecture but while delivering the lecture I will be looking at the mirror and correcting myself if my posture is right if my gestures are okay or not if my facial expressions are meaningful or not. This is hard practice one can do alone as I said in front of a mirror but there is no better practice than getting a group of people to work together with you and setting up a conversation. So I will leave this as a post week exercise in which once again go through the human gestures that were explained in the video sessions of this week but try to form small group. You need not spend hours together on doing this. You can just spend say 10 minutes in setting up a conversation and trying to ensure that both your words and your gestures are complementary to each other and convey with the maximum impact what you want to say. Let us see if there is any other question related to this theme you should not use informal communication. Some Ravi Raj Kadam wants to know what kind of gestures we should not use in formal communication. Interesting question. Mr. Kadam wants to know what we should not do and I appreciate the question because it is asking an important point. Everyone of us tries to emphasize what should be done but I think it is equally important to understand what should not be done. In a formal conversation in my opinion the gestures that you should avoid include sudden interruption. So in any formal communication and I take it first let me explain the formal communication when you are with a group of people. Any sudden interruption is likely to be considered a very impolite way. If you are conversing with even one person please try to ensure that you are looking at that person that your face expresses interest, the face expresses curiosity because whenever the other person is speaking the other person is watching you and he is trying to ascertain whether you are really interested in what is being spoken or not. So what not to do in a communication of this kind whether one to one or one to many is to sit with a very stiff face like this or what not to do is to look down upon or keep shuffling some things in your hand. If you do that you are indicating that you are not interested in whatever is being said. Please note this might not be the truth. Your ears might be hearing what is being stated and your mind might be actually absorbing everything but by a gesture where you are doing something else visibly and that is what is seen by others you are likely to be mistaken to mean that you are not interested. So avoid doing that that means whenever you are in a communication either in a meeting or with an individual please do ensure that you do not you do not use gestures which will indicate disinterest. Let me see if there is any other. Joe's Paul, non-verbal communication is through sending and receiving wordless clues. So how can we use them in the workplace? So here is a question from Joe's Paul. What happened? Here is a question from Joe's Paul. Non-verbal communication is through sending and receiving wordless clues. So how can we use them in a workplace? Well as I said the clues are not totally wordless although when we speak of gestures we speak about talking with only human body language and gestures and not with words. But please understand that words and gestures actually go together hand in hand. True there are occasions when you are not speaking anything and you are using only gestures. As I said in workplace wherever you are having a group discussion or wherever you are talking to an individual your gestures will add value to whatever you are saying. But looking at only gestures giving you giving clues by your body what is most important is what I just stated. Suppose a colleague of yours is speaking to you in workplace and you are just listening so you are not speaking anything. But as I mentioned your body is conveying a lot to that person indicating whether you are truly interested or whether the person is speaking to a dumb store that means you are just not interested and the gestures to be indicated there is to look curiously at that person with your eyes clearly focused on that person's face indicating that you are keenly listening to whatever is being stated. As I said a simple smiling face conveys a lot more comfort and familiarity to people around you. This is true amongst friends this is true amongst family but this is very true in the workplace as well. So please use your gestures to supplement and compliment whatever you are doing in your workplace. R.C. Patel has a question they have raised their hand. Let us go over to R.C. Patel. Over to you R.C. Patel you have any question or comment to make? Yes sir. Please go ahead. Good morning sir. Good morning. I am Kajal Jain and my question is how are non-verbal message communicated in an online environment? How is non-verbal language? Well it is not language that you are communicating but you are communicating using your non-verbal gestures. So the question is how do we communicate anything non-verbally in an online environment? Difficult question because if you mean by online environment either a chat session or an email very obviously your body and the expressions on your face are not seen at all and therefore to convey anything you have to depend entirely on the words which you use. But when you use those words you can actually compose the sentences appropriately such that the words convey the meaning better. In this sense try to make sure that not only your English is correct but the right emphasis is given to the words that you use. The only non-verbal communication online will happen when we have sessions like this when you are asking a question and when I am answering the question and thousands of other students across the country are watching us. Online does not mean only text-based communication. Anything that you use such as Skype, Google Hangout or Aview is actually an opportunity for online interaction but an online interaction which brings you face to face. This is the actual area in online communication which is full of opportunities for you to use your appropriate gestures in communication but I am afraid if you are using only words in an online thing that may not be added. We use words by the way in emails and chats because that was the only payload that our earlier networks could carry. They had very limited bandwidth. Please understand that when you become professional 3 to 4 years later even in India 4G would have been rolled out completely and country would be talking about 5G and other things. I envisage that in those days in future your online communication will almost always become a audio-visual communication like this. Today we have a lot of problems in setting up group communications your colleges have to help setting up an Aview and so on so that we can see and listen to each other and talk to each other but in future such usage of technology will increase so much that at the workplace or even in online communication people will be increasingly using video as an integral part of any such communication. It is not uncommon today for example for you to actually set up an audio-video meeting with your friends after all this is what we are doing now. So please do not consider online communication only to be limited to words. It may happen today although as I said you can always leave an MMS clip or a message which actually becomes an inclusion of your body language and your pronounced words in the communication as well. I hope this answers your question any counter question that you have over to you. Thank you sir, thank you sir. Yes sir, thank you sir, got it. Thank you. Let's go over to question. J.H. Rajaswani Institute of Engineering and Management, Jalgaon is a question is the tone with which we speak is nonverbal part in online sessions. Interesting, I am again unable to understand whether you are talking about only online communication through words or online audio-visual communications but in either case the tone is always very important. In a verbal communication the tone is indicated not only by the words that you speak the tone in which you speak and your gestures but in an online communication only using sentences the sentences do reflect what you have in mind and therefore the tone in which the words are used to compose those sentences are very important. I would say that whether online communication or whether offline communication or whether face-to-face communication tone always remains an important and integral part of whatever is being said or whatever is being called. Any other question on the chat session? There is another question by Ravi Raj Kadam. This does not relate to nonverbal communication but it is an important question so I will take it. He is asking if we do not know the answer of the asked question by the interviewer then how to pass that please. So, there are many interesting ways of doing that but I think the correct and polite way is to think for a few seconds and then say I am sorry sir but I do not think I know the answer to this question or simply I am sorry I do not know the answer. Please do not try to bluff your way by giving an answer. I will share with you an anecdote that happened in the M.Tech admissions committee I am talking about 70s when there was no gate examination and we used to call top performing people from various colleges and universities who applied for the M.Tech admission who had conducted rigorous written test and those who qualified in the written test would be interviewed by a panel. There is a student who had done his B.Tech in IIT Bombay itself and he came for the M.Tech interview and in the interview he saw a person who was not known to him so he presumed that he must be a new teacher who has just joined the institute recently. That person asked him a question the question related to the magnetic tape controller of our main frame Russian machine EC-1030 and he asked him the question about the magnetic tape controller. Now this student was actually not aware of the answer he did not know the answer and to me it appears that he should have just said sorry sir I do not know this particular aspect of magnetic tape controller but instead he decided that since the person asking the question appears to be a new faculty member and may himself not know much about magnetic tape controllers he started laughing his way out. He started talking about the properties and functionalities of magnetic tape controller which were actually not correct. He was speaking from his basic knowledge of magnetic tape controllers but he had no knowledge of the exact features of the tape controller used in that EC-1030. Unfortunately the gentleman who had asked him this question was our senior colleague and for past three years he was doing his PhD in United Kingdom in England and he had just returned. So he has not taught any course to this boy when this boy was in final few years of his life and therefore he was not known. However before going to England he was an expert in all hardware architecture and other aspects of the main frame and therefore he knew absolutely everything about this particular tape controller. Now within first 30 seconds the teacher on the panel understood that this boy does not know anything about the tape controller and yet he kept listening to him smiling and gnawing his head like this. He permitted the student to bluff for two full minutes and then smilingly said thank you very much. You have an extraordinary knowledge of magnetic tape controllers however the controller that you are describing has absolutely nothing to do with the tape controller that we have with this main frame. I suggest that you appear for entrance examination again next year. Thank you very much. You see what happened? The boy simply lost one year of his life. Actually he came back next year answered truthfully the questions whose answers he knew replied politely that he did not know to the questions to which he did not know the answers so that is the right way of doing things. Please do not ever try to bluff your way through. It will not work in 99 out of 100 cases and even in that one case where it works your own conscious will keep pricking you that you gave a wrong answer knowing fully well that you did not know the right answer. Never ever do that. However there are different ways of saying no. So, if somebody asked you a question whose answer you do not know you just do not say sit grumpy and say do not know sir. You should actually exercise your mind think for a few seconds. Number one never be in a hurry to answer a question in the interview even if you know the answer spend a couple of seconds three four seconds to compose that answer in your mind and then only start giving the answer. The same thing applies even when you do not know the answer to a question. How are you sure you do not know the answer to that question? Have you understood the question correctly? So please spend a few seconds analyzing the question and second trying to recall whether there is any relevant information that you have through which you may give not necessarily a fully correct answer but a partly correct answer. So let me explain how will you handle the situation where you do not know the answer to that question completely but you know some part of it. So the way to answer this question could then be think for a few seconds and say sir I do not think I know the complete answer but I think this is what I know and it would perhaps be a part of the answer to the question that you are raising and then say that part. There is a third part. Many times questions are asked in the interview where the question actually should be very clearly indicating that you may not know the answer. In fact the person who asked the question also knows very well that you are unlikely to know the answer but very often the interviewer is trying to see how you react to such questions. If you simply say no very quickly or you do not attempt even to think then it forms an impression which is not very positive. But suppose a question like this is asked to which you do not know the answer. You spend a few seconds and then say the following sir I do not think I know the correct answer to this question however if this question was to occur to me in real life I would think like this, this, this in order to understand more aspects of that question and then perhaps reason it out to answer it on my own. Now you would not be able to say all of this in an interview but that is what must go on in your mind. Consequently another strategy for answering such a question is not to answer it but to seek more information. For example, if a question is asked whose answer you do not know you may politely say sir do you mean this or can you elaborate it please? Can you repeat the question please? This gives you a few more seconds to compose your mind and either to outline a strategy or at the end say sorry I do not know the question. In conclusion try to buy time try to get more clarity from the interviewer but at the end if you do not know the answer politely say sorry sir I do not know the answer to this question and go on, never ever try to bluff your way out in an interview situation. R.C. Patel has another question. Over to you. Good morning sir. Good morning sir. My name is Namrata Kapde. My question is how we can test our non-verbal communication? Good question. Namrata is asking a question on how we can test the non-verbal communication. So as I said there are two very simple ways of doing this testing. One is speak in front of a mirror. Second is have a video recording replayed and in order to facilitate both please arrange in small groups a small event where you speak to each other on either specific topic. You know play acting, you know drama. Why can't you do a small drama of ten minutes in your own classroom comprising of four or five of your friends and in which you define each one of you to be playing a role. Somebody is a supervisor, somebody is a system analyst, somebody is a clerk, somebody is whatever whatever that is one way of doing it. Second in a round table just as you are sitting now instead of asking a question to an outsider like me and then expecting an answer start talking to each other but do record that conversation. If you have a small video camera well and good even if you don't have a video camera just have an audio recorder. Please note that your mobiles today are equipped with this simple tool which can record any audio conversation and the microphone is powerful enough to capture the sound of each one of you sitting around a round table. Please do that but do set up this mechanism and you should practice it at least once or twice a week just four or five of you on a predefined topic. Take any topic in which all of you have interest in all of you have some knowledge. Preferably take a topic which is likely to occur in a workplace doesn't matter what that topic is but start a discussion on a round table and record preferably your video but record your audio. At the end of ten minutes this meeting will end but the work does not end. Now every one of you should listen to that audio recording and if you have a video record you should all watch the video record. Believe me watching a video recording or listening to an audio recording teaches us a whole lot more about our deficiencies. That is where we would be able to see ourselves that oh while I was saying this my face was saying something else my body was saying something else. You will be able to notice this only when you watch yourself. So I would like to I would like to mention once again that it is very very important to do this kind of testing yourself. You don't require any expertise. You don't require any what should I say a very big infrastructure. In fact many of you would have selfie sticks. So as I said you don't even require a good quality camera. If you have one that is very nice. We do this exercise by the way in IIT in the courses that we conduct here for communication skills. So what I do is I ask every student to make a brief presentation for five minutes to all the audience. This presentation is on a topic related to that student's research work. These are all M.Tech students. It's very interesting that these competent students were very intelligent and knowledgeable about the topic. Many times do not speak well both in terms of the language that you use and in terms of the gestures that they demonstrate. But when we make them see their own videos they recognize the shortcomings. In short then in order to perfect your ability to use gestures well and to use even language well it is strongly suggested that in small groups create a discussion session, record the same. I was telling you about not having a high quality video camera. You don't really require it. But you might have a selfie stick or you might just position your mobile in some place and start recording the audio video on that mobile which will cover three or four of you. With some experiments you will be able to set up this mechanism yourself. Audio video recording is no more the costly thing that used to happen many years ago. You can do that yourself. Do it and more importantly visit that recording, listen to that recording, view that recording from the point of view of ascertaining where you have made a mistake or where you could make an improvement. Very often when I see my own video recording or I listen to my own voice I am unable to find mistakes. It is human nature. After all intrinsically I believe that whatever I am doing or whatever I am saying I am doing it perfectly well. Just as whenever we write something the best person to correct the errors is someone else. Similarly in this case also when you do a group recording apart from you looking at the errors yourself ask all your friends to comment. Just as you would be expected to comment on your friends' discussion, friends' speech, friends' gesture same thing applies to them as well. They may not be able to find the errors either in their gestures or in their words but you as an independent observer will be able to find an error. It is not difficult to invite either a senior colleague or mentoring student who has good communication skills or even your teacher once in a while to watch the video and to observe whether you have made any mistakes or not. I tell you, you do that let us say three times just once a week for 10-15 minutes and spend half an hour re-looking at that recording and making observations about correctness. That's all. At the end of three weeks you will find that your gestures have improved your words have improved and you have gained significantly in your ability to communicate properly. I hope this answers your question. Let's go over to some other remote centre. I see a lot of remote centres now. No handrails. Is there anything on the chat session? Who is that? It's a college from Satara. I can see all of you. Good morning and over to you. Sir, I have a question that when you ever ask a question first and we are thinking in our mind that answer should be this. What will be the positive facial expression to that answer? Very interesting question. Let me think. So let me repeat the question for the benefit of others who may not have been able to hear you. Please sit down friend. You don't have to stand up. It's perfectly fine. So our friend wants to know that if someone is asking a question and in your mind you are thinking about that question preparing your answer what should be the expression on your face during that time? Am I right in understanding? Yes sir. Right. I will answer this question in two parts. The first part is when you require only a very few seconds to compose your answer and answer it. Which means you generally know the answer but you are using some time to compose your answer properly. At that point in time during those few seconds your expression should simply be a face which is immersed in thinking. So you have heard the question during listening to the question you would have shown some curiosity and then you should suddenly do not look away from them but just tilt your head and do something like this to indicate that you are thinking and then start speaking that indicates to the interviewer that you are applying your mind and you are not responding rashly but you are thinking and saying something. This is the first part. The second part is when the question is really tough and you require longer time to think. There again the same gesture will work but if you keep doing this for too longer time then the interviewer might interpret that you have no clue to the answer. Please ensure that there is not too long a silence in case you require longer time before assuming any gesture of thinking within a few seconds when you need more time to think should say excuse me sir but will you please give me a minute to think about this answer. The interviewer will invariably say okay and then you should start thinking. This way is to use a paper and pencil during that time. You ask for a paper and pencil and on that paper and pencil you start scribbling the aspects of the answer that you are forming in your own mind. You will find it very interesting that although you may not need to write anything just writing a few words on the paper that gesture will convey to the interviewer that you are really trying hard to answer that question. Of course later on if somebody looks at what you have written the words that you have written should make sense. You should not be writing some abrahka-dabrahka on the paper while you are thinking something else. That will not happen. You will naturally try to write something which is relevant but what you write is not very important. The important thing is you are utilizing those additional seconds indicating to the person interviewing you that you are fully concentrating and applying your mind to try and answer the question correctly. That is the gesture I would suggest which would be most meaningful. Any more question from you? Over to you. Good morning sir. I am Vijay. Sir, as a I have a question regarding that interview during an interview as I am not good at English I have not good command over English sometimes it happens that I don't remember the words during when I am having a convalescent. So how to handle the situation when I don't remember certain English words and I am also not able to convey my words through my body language of my gestures. So how to convey my what I am thinking to interview? Vijay is a very important question that you have asked our friend Vijay wishes to know that while trying to answer a question I know the answer but I am not very good in English and therefore I believe I will not be able to answer the question correctly in English. Vijay you are not alone this happens with a large majority of Indians and I will mention this again that sadly this is not a situation in which you can come out with flying colors anytime there is no way out but to know the language that you are using as well as anyone else because without which you cannot communicate. Again I will give you a short answer which you have to use during such a situation really and a long answer which means you have to work on your part before even going to the internet. The short answer is this when a question is asked and you know the answer but you are not very good at English you should mug up the following sentence very perfectly you should say sir I know the answer but my English is not very good so pardon my mistakes in the language but technically I think I am able to answer this one question this is one sentence you cannot say this in answer to every question but at least once in the interview you should say this completely correct sentence you can rephrase it in your own words write it down and mug it you should be able to reproduce this sentence convincingly a convincing statement to say that your English is not good when I was in in Russia attending a conference I had learnt one sentence by heart said the sentence I had mugged up what does this sentence mean I do not know Russian language but when you say this every Russian used to smile and politely revert back in 2040 English that he could speak so saying a full sentence saying my English is not very good however I will still try to answer the question and then you can answer your own question you can answer the question in your own way even if your English is not good because the interviewer has been forewarned the interviewer will most probably try to understand the technical solution that you are explaining rather than the English so this is the short answer there is a long answer long not in terms of the answer that I give but long in terms of the time that you and hundreds of thousands of students Indian students across the country have to spend in order to correct that situation and what is that you have to make your English better I have said this earlier and I will say this again when you say your English is not good because you have not disciplined your mind to spend time to learn correct English and my guess is when you are not good in one language invariably you are not good in other languages as well try to examine whether you can answer a question fluently in any other language including your mother tongue this is particularly true about written answers people who are bad in writing English are invariably bad in writing their mother tongue as well about speaking it does not work that way because if we have been speaking in our mother tongue we are able to speak well but ask yourself a question are you able to answer technical questions in your mother tongue without using any English words you will find it impossible to do so because our mother tongue often does not have the equivalent English words in our mother tongue I am digressing but what I wanted to say is making your English language knowledge better is the only long term solution now if you have to give an interview tomorrow I am sorry this suggestion will not be very helpful but if you have to give an interview sometime in September or October you still have several months in which to improve both your verbal and written English there are a whole lot of courses available in fact in IIT Bombay we are designing a course which will help you to improve your English both verbal and written communication but as I said there are a large number of courses which you should actually take our course is likely to be released in the month of May other colleagues are welcome to use that course as well the point is if English is going to be the medium of communication at workplace and it is likely to be that for most of our engineering students at least then there is no choice but to improve your written and verbal communication in English this is not a short term remedy it will take a minimum of 6 months of weekly few hours in trying to improve your English you may not become exactly a great English orator at the end but you will be good enough to answer questions properly in good English so the long term answer is please improve your English and I have no fancy for English per se if German was to be used in all our workplace communication in the world you would have said learn German please do not neglect your own language when I say that you learn English I will also say something more please try to speak and write in your own language you will find that you equally make many mistakes in doing so and please try to correct that as well using correct language whether spoken or written is an important indication of completeness of the mental and educational development of a person using incorrect language while speaking or while writing and it does not matter what that language is actually indicates incompleteness of a person incompleteness of the education of the person does not matter how good you are in maths and engineering subjects or law or medicine or whatever be your feet does not matter but use of any language indicates inadequacy please try to remedy that situation so in conclusion I will repeat two important suggestions I would give number one related to English there is no choice but to spend extra effort to improve your English both in written form and in the verbal form as I said there are many courses available IIT Bombay course will be released in the month of May you may take any one of these courses but to spend time in correcting the situation number two and equally important do not think that you can improve English alone the real thing to improve is your mindset and the discipline about using correct language no matter what that language is so the second suggestion I have is please improve your mother tongue as well both in written and verbal form whether it is Hindi or Marathi or Telugu it does not matter it is my contention based on decades of my experience that when people say they are bad in English they are invariably not very good in their own mother tongue as well so try to spend some time in improving the discipline about use of a language English only happens to be very important because it is used in the workplace communication but your mother tongue or any other language that you use is equally important in terms of having this discipline so improve both English as well as your mother tongue or any other language which you have studied and ensure that you write spotlessly clean and correct language and you speak spotlessly clean and correct language whether it is English or anything else English obviously should be a priority sorry for the long answer but there is no shortcut to it improving our abilities to use language is very very vital in these days both in written and verbal form I think that should answer your question right let us go over to another remote center RC Patel has lot of questions here over to you over to you please go ahead and ask your question hello sir good morning my name is Arthit I have a question how we can bring confidence while communicating in English though we are not able to speak very well how are we able to build confidence and demonstrate confidence while speaking in English although we may not be very good in speaking English Arthit good question because it indicates the dilemma all of us face our level of confidence is often reflected based on our level of actual preparation so even if I am using reasonable English but I am doubtful in my mind about the correctness I will always have lack of confidence the person listening to me may not feel so but I will feel this lack of confidence and when I lack in confidence I am likely to make more mistakes so a very vicious circle may start whenever I lack confidence confidence particularly self confidence most importance it does not matter whether you are adequately prepared for a situation or you are not prepared at all yet under no circumstances you must let your confidence suffer I am reminded of a conversation that I had with a alumnus excuse me a friend of mine from Bombay alumnus who is settled in Canada his name is Ravi's Foda Ravi's Foda actually is an organizer of the alumni IIT Bombay alumna in the Toronto and nearby circles a few years ago I happened to be participating in one of the alumni event when I met him his wife and lovely daughters and his wife was complaining to me look at Ravi's he keeps on making mistakes after mistakes in life he tries something new, makes a mistake there he tries something new, makes a mistake there how long can this go on remember she is talking about an IIT here who passed 30 years ago who has done well in life who has done some jobs started some entrepreneurship a few have worked well to do and so on but his wife is complaining to me look at the mistakes that he makes this mistake, that mistake, that mistake and I intervened and I said excuse me Mrs Foda but don't you agree that Ravi's makes all these mistakes very confidently she smiled for the first time thought about it she said yes confident whenever he does anything whether he is making mistakes or whether he is doing right and then I said is he not a very sweet and sincere person she smiled again and said yes he is very sweet and he is very sincere in whatever he does I told her that is what sums up an IIT what does the IIT environment do to the students is it instills in them a tremendous amount of confidence of course making mistakes confidently is the wrong thing to do the point I was trying to make is that whatever you are attempting you must do it with full confidence what applies to IIT students can and must apply to every student anywhere in the world you see IIT has not fallen from the sky we are the same people as I keep repeating from India from amongst you why is it that this campus instills a greater level of confidence and other campus are not able to do that well that is a different question but as far as you are concerned both individually and in groups ensure that you always try to work and move with full confidence in yourself self confidence is something which is very very precious more important than anything else much more important than even knowledge of English so try to instill this self confidence you cannot get this self confidence unless you try out things whether it is speaking language or whether doing anything else or solving any hard problem even if you fail if you approach the problem more confidently you will always be nearer to the solution whether it is spoken language or whether it is a technical problem so I would like to suggest that the lack of confidence might appear to be the result of your known inadequacy I have to answer this question I know my English is not well and therefore I started shivering I lose my confidence the point is I I can treat the same situation like this I know my English is not very good but this person is asking me questions in English and I have to answer questions in English let me answer these questions in my tutti frutti English after all I may not know English well but I know the topic damn well and I know that my mind is smart enough to come up with a right answer when I think like this my self confidence will increase and I will be able to do a much better job in answering than what I would do otherwise in short being self confident is very important our self confidence actually does depend upon our adequacies or inadequacies if I know that I am not good in English or I am not good in this subject or something or I am shy for example my self confidence will diminish but if I try to reassure myself that look these are only small thing and I have no reason to lose my self confidence because otherwise I am a competent person I am a competent human being and therefore I will face the situation confidently therefore my suggestion to you is never ever compromise with your self confidence even in adverse situation even in when you are fully aware of your inadequacy try to approach the situation confidently because it is only your self confidence which will see you through many of the difficult situations in life these interviews and bad English etc or only minor points in the long run I hope this answers your question about them yes sir thank you very much we still have about 10 minutes if there is any other question what is that college this is Arvind Gowli college from Satara over to you you seem to have one more question I am sorry can you please repeat the question slowly I could not hear it how do you please interview positive gestures nobody I still could not get it can somebody type it out on chat please hello hello sir please question is that how to impress interviewer with positive gestures oh ok ok how to impress the interviewer with positive gestures well I am actually not very competent because unfortunately I have not given many interviews the last interview I gave was for the position of a professor and that was way back in 1989 or 90 however I have conducted a large number of interviews unfortunately in the recent past I have been conducting interviews only for very senior positions like CEOs or the managing directors and so on so let me reflect on my own experience the question that our friend has asked is how to impress the interviewer with your gestures I think the word how to impress has to be taken in some serious tone obviously he is not trying to impress artificially or impress using any false word I believe that the word impress is taken in the following spirit that you would like to convey the right impression about yourself to the interviewer and in that context you are asking how to use the gestures so the first answer to this is that the people who are sitting at the interviewer are actually much more experienced people and they will not get impressed or disimpressed based on whatever you do they have a very cool mind lot of experience however each one is observing you even if one of the panel members is asking you a question and you are answering that question the other panel members are observing you this is the reason why your gesture and your body language even why speaking to one of them should be such as to convey a self confidence as to convey an impression of a person who is eager to answer questions seriously and sincerely and that impression you can carry out you can actually indicate to your normal gestures you do not have to go out of the way and do any joker giri to impress people just behave yourself normally but be polite be firm and be very clear in what you say even if you are speaking to someone just remember this other people on the panel are also watching you and to them you must appear as a person who has full confidence in oneself who has great clarity and that clarity is indicated that confidence is indicated by your body language just behave yourself normally as you would do keep a smiling face keep a concentrated poser in your eyes that means your eyes must indicate complete concentration while listening to the question that is being asked and they must be believing when you are actually trying to answer a question correctly take your own time don't be in a hurry these are the normal gestures that you use nothing abnormal needs to be done in conclusion I would say please do not try to treat the use of gestures or language as a mechanism to impress people people sitting on interview committees are not there to be impressed they are there to judge you and they will judge you with whatever you say and they will judge you with the gestures that you do so use normal gestures that have been indicated to you we have had several sessions on how to appear for interview but use the gestures in your interviews to supplement and compliment whatever you are saying and that is why the posters like sitting confidently looking at somebody politely smiling face and having a look of concentration and seriousness on your face these are the important parts of the gestures by which you convey self-confidence by which you convey capability and the same is observed by anybody in short in conclusion you do not have to use any special gestures to impress people but the normal gestures that you are expected to use that you are required to use use them they will be visible to everyone along with your words what matters is the correct combination of your gestures and words and once again I will repeat what I said it is not good enough for you to listen to this answer and convince yourself that yes that is the way to do it is important for you to practice this without practice you cannot achieve the correct combination of gestures and words so please go back to the answer that I gave that is form a small group and create a situation where you are discussing something you can even have a short interview where a mock interview is created what is most important is record preferably both audio and video of such session record how you are speaking and watch that recording and not alone but with a friend because as I said I may not be able to observe my mistakes but when I have someone else to look at it that someone else may be able to tell me or a product you made a mistake here or your eyes were not looking very clear or your words were stumbling or your face was not spiling or you were very stiff in your chair all these observations are best made so please do spend some time in doing this small group activity record the proceeding and visit those proceedings review those proceedings make notes on what you learn although I am digressing a bit but I would like to say this because many of these students do not sit with a notebook and a pen in their hand they believe that they can just listen whatever is going on or view any video recording and their minds are sharp enough to understand of course their minds are sharp enough but the minds are also forgetful and that is the reason I advise whether you are watching a video session in a MOOC course or whether you are reviewing a video session of such recording you must sit with a paper and pencil and write down against each name Sushant made this mistake while saying this or at 2 minutes 31 seconds this person raised his head or looked at somebody arrogantly whatever it is whatever comes to your mind always record it at the end go through these recordings believe me you will find together in a collaborative fashion a lot of indications of individual weaknesses and mechanisms to correct them in future we are already at 11 o'clock I will spend some some more time but there are questions from these are Amrish Sahu interpersonal skill what do the terms critical and emphatic mean in listening skills how mind maps well I would suggest that I will pass on these questions to Professor Ashish Pandey who is going to take up the session from 11.30 specifically on listening skills and notes taking so most of these questions relate to that session let me see if there is there is one question by Mohammed Ubed Vani from Baba Gulam Saab Bacha University what are the advantages and disadvantages of non-verbal communication well it is an interesting question coming at the end of the session I thought the entire week and the video recording that you have indicate how important the non-verbal communication is my only request is go through those videos once again to appreciate the importance there is no disadvantage of non-verbal communication except that if you do not use non-verbal communication that you are in a disadvantageous position or if you use the non-verbal communication in any bad way then you will be in a disadvantageous position the whole idea of non-verbal communication is number one to compliment and supplement whatever is being stated in words and number two whenever you are silent and not speaking yet your body continues to speak how to make your body and gestures speak such that without uttering a word you are able to create an appropriate environment so that you can be judged to be a very positive person by anybody who is watching you not just listening to you I think I will conclude this session because there are no further questions related to this particular thing this particular issue on the non-verbal communication but there is a very important session to follow my colleague Professor Ashish Pandey who will be answering questions and explaining a few more things on notes taking and listening skills let us break for a cup of tea now we will reassemble here at 11.30 where my colleague Professor Ashish Pandey will be happy to answer questions related to these aspects before going I would like to only mention one thing we had announced a set of topics that we will cover subsequently when the course started you will notice that in the weekly session that we have several of those topics are being covered the reason is that soft skills and workplace communication are areas in which it is extremely difficult to isolate a particular activity and treat that activity completely in isolation all of the activities are interrelated and all of them lead to better soft skills and better workplace communication and that is the reason why the different topics explained by different faculty colleagues all add up to this composite value and it is the composite value that will make maximum sense in your professional life please keep that in mind while attempting the weekly quizzes and while looking at the weekly sessions you might be doing a particular aspect of the course but always in your mind try to link that aspect with the overall requirements of developing totality of the soft skills and in understanding properly the entirety of the workplace communication that is the objective so keep relating to each other and of course keep asking us questions we are very happy to answer those thank you so much over and out for a small tea break we will assemble again at 11.30 bye