Keep the doors open. The simplest way to build communication skills in a dorm is to keep the door to your room ajar to welcome visitors. As a resident assistant, you can encourage your students to keep their doors open and even set up certain hours during the week in the evening, calling it "Open Door Night." Some colleges now have half doors in their dorms where the top can be opened while the bottom remains closed so that communication is facilitated among students, but they can also keep their privacy.
Plan weekly activities. Students can get preoccupied with studying, parties and significant others, so plan fun weekly events in the dorm so they want to stay home and bond with each other. Organize such activities like cooking events. where students need to interact and negotiate how to process something. Special speakers are effective in building communication skills when they speak about coping with conflict or disagreements. Encourage students to present a topic from time to time which enhances their ability to speak in public.
Arrange study groups. When students go over material together and come up with strategies for retaining material, they are forced to build proficiency in communication. They ask questions of each other and need to wait for the answer which builds active listening skills. They may share common frustrations about instructors which bonds them and hones their empathetic abilities.
Intersect arguments right away. Noticing and intervening when disagreements arise allows students to learn how to resolve conflicts. As a resident assistant, you don't want to interfere to the point of micro-management but rather you want to encourage them to communicate and work it out themselves. When residents have to compromise and find common ground, it helps to build negotiation skills.
Set up a mentoring system. New residents arrive with a broad spectrum of communication skills already under their belts. Some will be excellent communicators by nature, while others may be less experienced. Regardless, older residents have had more time to learn about interacting with students of all kinds, so utilize their knowledge to help guide younger students. Set up a program that pairs participants and give them activities to do that nurture good communication, such as a weekly coffee date where they just talk about what's going on in their lives.