Communication is the lifeblood of an organization, an institution and even the individuals themselves. It is the bedrock of pleasant ground and good relationship between the communicator and receiver. Kottler (1977:125) defines communication as ‘a process consisting of a sender transmitting a message through media to a receiver’. For the purpose of the purposes of the presentation, lecturer according to Pradhan (1977) is an oral presentation of information and idea by a person to a large group of student generally in a face to face situation at a particular place.
Here students only listen to what the lecturer says. Whilst on the other hand Stoner and Freeman (1989) indicates that group discussion is the qualitative method to obtain in depth information on concepts and perceptions about a certain topic through spontaneous group discussions of approximately 6 -12 persons, guided by a facilitator that each is able to communicate with all the others face to face to reach to a decision and achieve the common goal.
The linear model of communication by Shannon and Weaver (1949) will be used to examine the lecturer method at the University and the group discussion will be explained by Schramm’s interactive model (1954). Lasswell’s (1948) version of the linear model is ‘who says what, in what , in which channel, to whom and with what effect’. The sender who is the lecturer is the source of the message, also the speaker, sends the message to the students who are the listeners or the receivers.
Communication is one way and its emphasis is that the recipient must get the message despite the fact that the theory appreciates that there is ‘noise’ which can be translated to barriers of communication. The first advantage of the lecture method of teaching is that lecturers can be presented to large audiences at the same time Bonwell (1996). Lecturers appeal to mass audiences and therefore appeal to situations where the student to faculty ration is very high. A good example is…
