Free, right now
The first four chapters online, with a knowledge check after each chapter. Plus a PDF with a worksheet and cheat sheet.
You can read the lessons straight away. For the PDF, you leave your details.
Start with lesson 1Prefer to have a trainer there with you?
The two-day Communication Skills course. You practise with your own conversations and hear how you come across, from a trainer and from the group.
€1250,- excl. VAT
View the Communication Skills course All Conversation Techniques courses →You say something, the other person nods, and a week later it turns out you agreed on something entirely different. Or you politely ask someone to take a look at something, and it does not happen. Communication feels like something that happens by itself, because you do it all day long. That is precisely why we rarely stop to consider how often a message changes along the way.
This free online course is the starter for our full Communication skills. In the first four chapters you see how a message travels from sender to receiver and where the noise creeps in, you discover that you are always transmitting on three channels at once, you learn the difference between your first impulse and a considered response, and you rewrite your own vague sentences into sentences that leave no room for doubt. Each chapter ends with a short knowledge check, so you notice straight away whether it is sticking.
The full course goes on to cover your core qualities and pitfalls, active listening, asking questions and summarising, Leary's Rose, assertiveness and setting boundaries, giving and receiving feedback, resistance and bad news, the Johari window and your own limiting beliefs. Would you like to practise those topics with a trainer present, and with your own conversations as material? Then take a look at the Communication Skills course.
0.-
IntroductionHow this free course is structured and what you learn in the four chapters.
1.-
The communication processCommunication as a purposeful process, the formula E = K x A, the Shannon and Weaver model, noise and the three laws of communication.
2.-
The three channels of your messageWords, body language and use of voice: what each channel does, why they can contradict one another and what the 55-38-7 ratio does and does not mean.
3.-
Your first reaction and your first impressionReacting primarily versus secondarily, the pause between stimulus and response, and the three factors that determine your first impression.
4.-
Communicating clearlyDirect versus indirect, the four forms of vagueness, wrapped-up wishes and the frame of reference that gives words their meaning.
5.-
Core qualities and pitfallsHow a strong quality tips over into behaviour with the opposite effect, and which challenge and allergy go with it.
6.-
Active listeningPaying attention versus showing attention, listening-summarising-probing and the obstacles that get in the way.
7.-
Asking questions and summarisingOpen and closed questions, the summary as a steering tool and probing until you know what is really going on.
8.-
The Leary CircumplexBehaviour invites behaviour: two axes, eight styles and how to steer a conversation that has stalled in a different direction.
9.-
Assertiveness and setting boundariesThree response styles under pressure, standing up for yourself without walking over the other person and saying no in practice.
10.-
Giving and receiving feedbackBuilding up feedback, receiving it without becoming defensive and the difference between criticism and feedback.
11.-
Difficult conversation situationsObjections and resistance, conflicts and emotions, and delivering bad news in a way that keeps the relationship intact.
12.-
Self-knowledge and thought patternsThe Johari window, the REBT method and the beliefs that get in your way during conversations.
13.-
Putting it into practiceFrom insight to a concrete development point, experimenting with new behaviour and keeping it up after the course.
That is the difference with a pdf: there is someone standing in front of the class who answers your questions and thinks along with your own situation.
Mieke
Trainer in conversation techniques and train-the-trainer
8,8 from 386 evaluations
Rob
Trainer in communication and leadership
8,6 from 346 evaluations
Michaela
Trainer communication and personal development
9,1 from 264 evaluations
Christy
trainer in communication and leadership
9,2 from 256 evaluations
I found the 'Interview Techniques' course to be good. Nothing to fault. It was also good that Job called beforehand for a short preliminary discussion. You don't see that very often. A very worthwhile course. It also had a strong element of repetition. Plenty of variety, including between theory and practice. Learned a lot, and applied it straight away during the course. And I think these learnings will also help me further when conducting interviews.
Tjeerd J
We took the Outlook, Teams and OneNote course with Roy Nieuwenhuijzen. Good content, and a few days before the course he got in touch with me (coordinator of the course, head of the secretariat). Pleasant that you can fill in the day itself as needed. The booklet for reference is rather dated, but apparently there is little up-to-date material to be found.
Inge Brouwers
In May 2024 I took the WordPress course. As an IT enthusiast with broad but not necessarily deep knowledge, I wanted to know more about WordPress. How do you install everything and how do you start building a website. This course is extremely well suited to that. From the outset you learn in 3 days how to start a website and what to look out for. I now have a solid basis for getting to work with WordPress and I know my way around the various options. The course is recommended for anyone who wants to learn in three days what WordPress can do and how to apply it.
Igno Freriksen
Your own motivation and commitment are essential if you want to master something new. You can get a long way with self-study. Learnit wants to contribute to this by offering valuable content such as free webinars and courses. This way you can get acquainted with new fields of learning. Once you have made a start, you may discover that there are also many advantages to taking a course at Learnit under the guidance of an experienced trainer.
In short, you achieve much more in less time.
The free courses are suitable for home study, as you can download them online as a PDF. The range of free courses consists of IT and Communication & Management courses. Would you like to learn more about these subjects, or is the subject you want to learn about not included? Then take a look at our courses.
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In this course you learn to stand up for yourself while respecting the other person. You practise setting boundaries, saying no, giving feedback and communicating with purpose. You gain insight into your own behaviour and learn to present yourself decisively without walking over others.
In this course you learn how to give and receive feedback constructively. You discover techniques for adjusting behaviour, strengthening cooperation and creating an open communication climate. You also learn how to deal with emotions, criticism and difficult conversations.
Learnit offers more than 300 IT and Communication & Management training courses. The courses are given as one-day or multi-day courses, and almost all of them can also be given as a workshop. In addition, Learnit offers courses as e-learning and as a combination of e-learning and classroom lessons.
Learnit has many locations throughout the country, so there is a good chance that a course is also given near you! A course can also be given in-company, in which case it takes place at your own company or organisation.
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