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Aalto University School of Business redesigned its mandatory first-year communication course so that it places positive communication skills at its core and integrates improvisational theatre techniques to strengthen students’ interpersonal, team, listening, and negotiation skills in response to employer needs. The new modular course design offers a scalable, adaptable framework for varying class sizes and delivery modes. 

Senior University Lecturer Christa Tammenluoto from the Department of Management Studies says that in 2019, a comprehensive re-think began to address issues of course focus and perceived relevance. ‘It was important to ensure that the first-year Finnish-language course Työelämän viestintä- ja vuorovaikutustaidot meaningfully complements a successful second-year business communication course, Mastering influence in business communication, and fills gaps especially in interpersonal and team communication content.’ 

According to Tammenluoto, an action-research approach guided the redesign, drawing on a broad review of business communication, positive communication, and improvisation scholarship to ensure the course was grounded in research rather than anecdote. 

The course integrates many ideas from Mirivel’s model of positive communication, such as having strong listening skills and asking relevant questions to deepen relationships. It also introduces students to two key improvisational theatre concepts, the “yes, and” approach and status behavior to help students understand how they can impact any communication situation positively. Status behavior refers to the nonverbal and verbal means that we use to communicate our social standing, power and self-confidence in comparison to others.

Improvisation can foster important competencies 

To help students develop their skills, the course is organised as a flipped classroom so that students study the theory before the class sessions, and all class time is used for activities. Many of these learning activities use improv methods.

According to research, using improv techniques can foster self-confidence, social interaction capabilities, cultural understanding, audience awareness, and emotional intelligence, all highlighting their pedagogical value in communication skills training. 

Christa Tammenluoto says that combining elements from Mirivel’s positive communication model with well selected improvisation concepts and techniques provides a robust framework for courses aiming to develop interpersonal and team communication skills. At the same time, they provide a good foundation for developing students’ negotiation and presentation skills. 

Already 2,000 students have taken the redesigned course

Since implementation, the redesigned course has been taught more than 35 times to approximately 2,000 students by 10 different teachers. Currently, the course is taught to groups of 70 students. As many universities globally face a similar pressure to increase the groups sizes of their business communication courses, Tammenluoto hopes that the modular and scalable design of this course can provide useful ideas for faculty in other universities.

The article published in the Business and Professional Communication Quarterly aligns with current calls in the field of positive communication to translate scholarship into actionable teaching guidance by detailing modules and activities that explicitly cultivate communication praxis. The redesign of this communication course offers an evidence-informed, practitioner-oriented model that others can adapt in higher education communication curricula. 

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