1 . How to Improve Your Communication Skills

If you feel like you lack the basic skills required for good communication, there are a number of reliable ways to improve. Here are a few tips:

    1    Effective communicators are always good listeners. Active listening means engaging with what people say by giving positive replies and asking follow-up questions to show that you are paying attention.

Focus on nonverbal communication. Mastering nonverbal signals can help prevent miscommunication and signal interest to those around you.    2    Your nonverbal signals affect the first impression you make on someone. Maintaining eye contact, limiting hand gestures, and having good posture go a long way when meeting someone for the first time.

Manage your own emotions. For clear communication and your own personal well-being, it’s important to manage your emotions and express them appropriately in context.    3    

Practice public speaking.    4    However, there’s no better way to develop good communication skills than by seeking out public speaking opportunities. Great communicators are able to clearly express their feelings, whether they’re speaking to a large group or talking face-to-face to one other person. Regularly speaking in front of a group will help you find your strengths and weaknesses and force you to develop great communication habits.

Ask for feedback. There’s no shame in asking for honest feedback on your communication skills from people around you.    5    

2 . Smiling gives you a happy appearance.    1     People who often smile sincerely connect easily with others and are appreciated more.By smiling, you make a positive impression that will assist in making contacts and reaching your goals.Moreover, smiling makes you feel good.

What does your smile mean as a company manager? Management is serious business! However, most managers are aware of the positive effect that a well-meant smile can have on others.    2     However, there are moments when you'd better not smile： Imagine that you are receiving some bad-news, or you're in the middle of a difficult negotiation.

    3     When someone smiles, we think of pleasure and happiness first, but that interpretation（解释）is not always correct.Imagine, for example, that you stumble on the street and almost person, and that the other person will immediately answer with a smile.    4    

Finding the right balance between showing a happy facial expression and a serious facial expression is an art in itself.We want to come across as being relaxed and friendly.    5     However, if we contemplate（考虑）this for too long, a frown will soon appear on our faces.Actually, with a smile, you will achieve the most and you will feel most happy with it.

Police are likely used to people approaching them with questions.One day in Michigan, a police officer named Sgt.Heather walked to a mom and asked her a question regarding her family’s living situation.

The woman named Erin Harrison and her twin daughters were homeless, and she simply asked the police officer if it was illegal to sleep in their car.From their conversation, Sgt.Heather knew that Erin was going to be sleeping in the car so that she could get the kids to the school in the next morning.Erin told Sgt.Heather that she and her two daughters Hayden and Abbigale were driven out of their rented house because she couldn’t afford to pay the skyrocketing（飞涨的）rent price.

However, they needed a place to sleep.They’ve been surviving in their car on the parking lot of the children’s elementary school for a while now.They had nowhere else to go.Erin worked day in and day out at a local McDonalds to take care of her two beautiful daughters, but they weren’t able to move into a home yet.

When the police officer was faced with this heartbroken question, she immediately decided to help.As a mom, she knew she had to get the family a place to stay in.Sgt.Heather was also a mother and she couldn’t let this family go without a place to stay in.She quickly reached out to some friends and colleagues to gather enough money for a hotel room, so they could at least have one warm and comfortable night.

The police officer also gave a fun birthday party for the twins Hayden and Abbigale.They would celebrate their ninth birthday just a couple of days later.The girls were amazingly surprised and happy because their mother had told them she would not be able to do anything for their birthday due to their present situation.

Luckily, the police department and local community were able to give the twins a party they never expected.

The news about this family in need quickly spread across the town.

4 . Handwritten thank-you letters are such a simple way of making other people feel good, it is strange that so few people write them anymore. At work, a thank-you letter to employees is unbelievably effective. It costs little and has no side effects. The effort involved in writing letters very low. The pleasure on receiving them is very high.     1    

Doug Conant, manager of Campbell’s Soup Company since 2001, knows the power of thank you letters. He said that every day he works with an assistant, searching the company for people deserving thanks.     2     Over the past 10 years he has sent 30, 000 thank-you letters to his employees — more than 10 each day. The reward is huge: his company has remained one of the most successful in its field for years.

    3     There seem to be three reasons. Firstly, chief executives (主管) running companies think their own work is more valuable than that of others.     4     Secondly, they aren’t close enough to the business to know who deserves thanks. Thirdly, they have forgotten the strange human truth that almost everyone would do almost anything in return for a few words of appreciation.

In these days of such busy schedules and people running all over the place and trying to get ahead, sometimes we forget the simplest things in life are the most powerful and rewarding. You need to think to yourself about a time someone sent you a thank-you and how much it meant to you.     5    

5 . I live in Modiin, Israel. When the pandemic began spreading across Asia and Europe, Israel locked down pretty quickly. The isolation (隔离) period was_________on everyone, but I felt like I learned a lot about myself and my_________.

Usually, I'm a(n)_________person. But during that period, I noticed I was able to_________myself for a very long time without having to interact with others. I had more time to_________online classes, art, books and writing.

_________, the pandemic brought out the best in people. Israel is a tiny country, so sometimes, it feeds like a huge family instead of_________. For example, teenagers all_________the country come together to help the elderly. There were countless teenagers in_________cities who organized deliveries of food, medicine and anything else elderly people needed. My dad and I helped__________some packages to the elderly people of our city as well.

When schools reopened in May, things went back to__________. The only difference I saw was that everyone was wearing a__________. Overall, I think the pandemic was__________well, and we all learned something from it. And it gave me an opportunity to help in my community and__________people coming together for a good cause. I hope these acts of__________in the community will continue.