Listen first, then speak

Very much so, but don't stop listening just because you've started speaking.

The OP says "Communicate in the language of the listener", and I think few people understand how insanely difficult that actually is to do.

The way most people instinctively listen is to translate things into their own terms as they hear it ("the compilation phase"), then throw away the source. What you need to do is build a mental model as you go of how the other party sees the world, trying not to get too sidetracked by any deficiencies you spot, and then using that both to determine the answer to give, and to determine how to phrase it.

One of the most useful communication skills is the ability to give the same answer in different words - and that doesn't just mean referring to "thingies" instead of "objects", but rather more like writing a lisp program to solve the same problem as an existing one in C: going back to the beginning and coming at the whole thing from a different angle.

For advanced students, the trick is finding the right angle simply by correctly discerning from the question itself all the clues necessary.

For anyone wanting to become a better communicator, I highly recommend giving support for some application that can be used by the techophile and -phobe alike, such as an editor - to practise discerning from the nature of the question, and the tone, and the vocabulary, and any other clue that presents itself, which of the myriad possible answers is appropriate for this individual.

Hugo