Communication skills are central to teacher effectiveness and instructional expertise. A teacher's communication behaviors can also serve motivational purposes that facilitate a number of important instructional outcomes. This article highlights six skills that every physical education teacher should master. Three of the skills are rhetorical in nature, in that they primarily function to persuade students that what they are learning is important. The other three skills are relational in nature, in that they function to facilitate and nurture the growth of strong interpersonal relationships between teachers and students. Taken together, these six skills underpin the instructional communication process and, when used effectively, can help students understand why physical education holds value and merits the investment of self-motivated effort to achieve success in class. (Contains 2 tables.)