Page 147 - DENG401_Advance Communication Skills

Advanced Communication Skills

Notes but it should be left on the table while reading. Although it is possible that different persons
may have different opinions regarding this.
Control on Personal and Environmental Factors

Personal physical conditions like general state of health and conditions of the eye influence the
speed, comprehension and reading efficiency. Psychological obstacles like concentration also
affect the ability to read. For best reading, the following external conditions are to be maintained:
1. Proper lighting
2. Good seating (chairs, tables or desks)
3. Ventilation

4. Temperature
5. Lighting
6. Reading aids like pencil, pen, paperweight, and dictionary.

Task The Mystery of the Mice Tower
Read this story by using techniques discusses above.
In the December 1932 issue of "The Scouter" (U.K.), the Chief Scout, Lord Baden-Powell,
varied from his usual Scouting message to write the following ghost story. In the United
Kingdom, ghost stories are very much a tradition at Christmas, hence such well-known
ghostly tales as Dickens "A Christmas Carol". Meant to be read aloud, by flickering firelight,
to the accompaniment of roasting chestnuts and steaming mugs of cocoa, you might like
to incorporate this tradition into your own Christmas meeting with, perhaps, your boys
bringing along their own favourite ghostly yarns to read aloud in the shadowy semi-
darkness.
Regarding our Scouts Camping Ground at Kandersteg in Switzerland, many Scouts have
been there, and many more will go there, to all of whom the Mice Tower in the Camp
Ground will be known. Since this is our Christmas Number, I venture to give a story of the
Mice Tower in place of my usual homily on Scouting.
I was trying to make out the meaning of the words 'Gott behuete dieses Hus und all da
Gehen in und us', which were carved upon the beam above me, in the living-room in the
timber-built house of the cure in Kippel. I had, in the course of a hike through Switzerland,
wandered into the Loetschen Valley, a quaint backwater of civilisation which, until the
railway tunnel pierced the surrounding mountains, had been cut off from the rest of the
world except for a pass of 10,000 feet which was impassable for five months of the year. So
the inhabitants were themselves quaint and original in their ways and customs.
When I came into the agglomeration of ancient brown wooden houses which, with
wonderful picturesqueness and awful smells, constituted the village, I was surprised to
find no one about; the whole place seemed deserted. At last I hit on an aged priest coming
out of the church, and in reply to my question where were the inhabitants, he pointed to
a notice pinned on what proved to be the mayor's house. This directed the families named
in the margin, one and all, to go this week haymaking on the high meadows on the
mountain. The various people concerned were not mentioned by name but, as the custom
was, were indicated by their family totem signs. The old priest proved himself an interesting
Contd...

140 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY