Critical Reflection on SEM2902

My biggest takeaway from this course is learning how to communicate well. I personally felt that communication is the key to success, it takes place across our whole lifetime. Someone’s ability to communicate well not only comes from experience but also learning about the basis of communication, of which we learned in this course. Throughout this course, I’ve learnt to be a more effective communicator than before, recognizing the mistakes and faults that I made while communicating with others. Before this module, I always felt that communication is best done if I speak up my mind. But at times, what I tried to communicate may get lost in translation despite our best intention. We may say one thing and the other party hears something else and that is where misunderstandings, frustrations and conflicts ensue. Being a better communicator would allow me to prevent these situations from happening. After going through the first few lessons on verbal and non-verbal communication skills, I found out that there is more than we think in a simple conversation between two parties.

Like I mentioned before, I always felt that communication is best done if I were to just say what is on my mind. I realized that communication is a two-way street, it is not only how I conveyed the message but also how best can I conveyed it so that the person receiving it understand it the exact way I intended, like a transmitter and receiver in a more technical term. Likewise, it is also important how I listen to gain the full meaning of what is being said by the other person so that I am able to make the other person feel heard and understood.

Another important point is the non-verbal communication skills that I need to hone. It is important to first acknowledge that it plays a big part during communication. Our facial expression, gestures, eye contact, posture and tone of voice are more often than not speak the loudest during a conversation. The ability to use them is not enough, but a good communicator must also understand it so that one can better connect with others and build better relationships.

Throughout this module, I am happy to gain the knowledge being taught in every class as I am able to better and further understand not only about others but also myself.

The module allowed me taught me to grow as a better communicator, not only as but I an able to understand myself better, as a communicator, knowing what my strengths and weaknesses are as a communicator. With that, I am able to work on my communication skills and work towards being a better communicator.

I would like to thank Brad and my classmates for going through this journey with me and imparting all the different knowledge and making this experience is joyful for me. 🙂

 

 

 

Critical Reflection on Project Learning

Time management has always been an important factor for me, specifically time constraint given to every presentation. Being concise with a consciousness of the time constraint has always been a problem for me, as I will need think more about the different ways to deliver my points to make sure that my points get across to my audience. With that being my main concern, I had to explore my options and find the most effectively way to get my points across, be it in the video and the oral presentation portion.

Within the project, we are given the time frame for both the video and the oral presentation, three to five minutes respectively.

To prevent going beyond the time constraint, we had to revise our storyboard multiple times to make sure nothing is repetitive, unnecessary or long winded. As expected even after intricate planning, the both the video and my oral presentation did exceed the time limit and with the penalty involved that is something that I would want to avoid, as I did succeed in avoiding going over the time limit for the presentation for Composition class last semester.

In terms of keeping the video short, we actually had another portion of our video not shown in during the presentation. As we found out, after the editing of video and consultation with Brad, we could have Zong Hong talk about the content instead.

However in terms of my oral presentation, I noted that I did not done a good job in keeping my content short and summarized. This result me in rushing most of my oral presentation, which seemed unstable and unprofessional. I have also noted that the rest of my team mates were not facing the same issue during their oral presentation, even though they shared the same amount of content with what I have or even more. Their pacing was good, they were able to make their content short and informative. I felt that those are the factors that stands up in the good presenter and I need to learn more from them.

I had always known that time management is not my strong suit and I usually spend more time in planning and cutting down on the details and content to fit in the time frame. But after my oral presentation, I’ve come to realize that it is not always the best choice. In my future presentations, I would work on this aspect of my presentation skills.

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

Most interpersonal conflicts in life probably involve the people you are close to, such as your friends, family and people you work with. When those conflicts are not resolved, they might escalate too far and damage the relationship you have with them. Conflicts usually happens due to differences of opinions and values.

The situation I am going to describe is an example of a conflict due to the clash of values. This conflict is between my friend, Alice and me and it occurs during my exam period of last semester, nearing her birthday. It was her 21^st birthday and we have been planning on what we will be doing, where we will be going and making all the plans months before I even started school. With that advance planning and my unknown schedule, there was bound to be risks.

I found out that Alice’s birthday was near my exams, which was a serious problem. Our plans and my schedule were going to collide and I did not want to break the bad news to her about not being able to be there on her birthday, after all planning that we have done. I thought I would still be able to cope with my exams with just some revision, as I did when I was in Polytechnic. As we were a week before Alice’s birthday, I realized that amount of revision I was doing was not enough and I really wanted to do well for my first term in university. So I had to break the news to her. So, I called her.

Me: Hey, you free to talk now?

Alice: Yup, I’m free. What’s up?

Me: I wanted to tell you something that is… kinda important

Alice: *wary* ya… About?

Me: *Silent for a few seconds* *speaking quietly* you know how your birthday is next week?

Alice:  *still wary*and…

Me: and…. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it on that day…

Alice: *shocked* what? Why?!

Me: I have my exams coming up soon and I really want to focus on it.

Alice: You only knew about your exams now?!?!

Me: No! I knew about it a few weeks when my term start.

Alice: And you KNEW it would clash with my birthday! Why didn’t you say it earlier?!?! You just didn’t want to celebrate with me right? *voices getting increasing louder*

Me: no.. that’s not …

Friend: *Interrupts* WHATEVER!! YOU’RE ALWAYS LIKE THIS. BACKING OUT OF PLANS IN THE LAST MINUTE. *hangs up*

(End of conversation)

Now, granted that there were times that I did cancel our plans with Alice. But with that accusation of doing that all the time, I was also angry at her and did not bother to text, call or even check up on her after our argument. Until now, I am still embarrassed to admit that we never talked since.

Relating to what we had learnt in class about conflict management, both of us are of competing type.  Both of our actions can be viewed as a low level of cooperation and high level of assertiveness, with Alice’s accusations of me and my actions afterwards, which is completely ignoring Alice and not trying to explain myself further to her.

Not talking to someone anymore because of some misunderstandings and accusations is probably kind of dumb. But I just could not let down my pride and apologize to her. How would you handle this situation if this happened to you?

Last updated: 9th March 2016

Commented on: Hyirah

Syai

 

 

Responses to Mr Beta Han

Dear Mr. Han,

We have received your email regarding our T15 Wireless with Bluetooth technology product. We apologize that our product did not meet your expectations. Please be assured that our products are thoroughly tested for sound quality before we release them. I have spoken to our engineers and they are rectifying this issue.

Unfortunately, we are unable to offer you a full refund. However, we would be like to replace the faulty product if you are able to make a trip down to our technical support centre. As you mentioned in your email in regards to our warranty period, we would definitely discuss about revising our product warranty period.

 

Thank you for your feedback.

Sincerely,

Angela Cheng

Head of Customer Service

Creative’s PTE LTD

Done By: Angela Cheng, Zong Hong and Mei Ying

 

Four Ways to Improve Your Emotional Communication

 

Team Members: Hyirah, Kok Zheng and Lin

This online article “4 ways to improve your emotional communication” written by Susan Krauss Whitbourne(2014) in Psychology Today, focuses on four skills such as perceiving, facilitating, understanding and managing emotions to improve one’s emotional communication.

Firstly, perceiving emotion is about being emotionally aware of oneself. When one is able to perceive their own emotions, the person will be more resistant to the bad moods and be able to maintain their composure during bad situations.

Secondly, facilitating emotions is about evaluating different emotions in a situation and putting them together in a useful way. Identifying one’s emotion, figuring out where it’s coming from, and then deciding how to act in a way to resolve the situation is likely to produce the best possible outcome. Generally, this strategy works the best.

Thirdly, understanding emotion is the ability to understand how one react to various situations. By doing so, the person will be able to have a better prediction on how one will react to the similar situation in the future. Thus helping the person making better decisions.

Finally, managing emotions is the ability to to keep one’s coolness while someone is expressing strong emotions or when someone is in a stressful situation. Being able to do so will prevent them from impulsive behaviors and this will also manage one’s frustration in one’s personal life. As whenever one’s emotions get out of control, the less likely it will be that the person will get the outcome the person desire.

These are the 4 skills to successful emotion communication.

Evaluating verbal and non-verbal communication.

Communication is not just about what people say or hear. It is also related to how they react and how they present themselves. Those are part of the nonverbal communication which will be discussed more in this post. I realised that when someone is saying a sentence, with different tones and nonverbal cues, the message could have a completely different meaning. One example I noticed would be when someone says “I’m fine,”, paired with a dismissive tone, with no eye contact and staring at the ground. This could mean that someone is annoyed and just did not want to talk about it.On a side note, while being paired with eye contact, smiley face and a happy tone, it could mean a completely different story and that the person is happy and answering sincerely.

That being said, after learning more about the different nonverbal cues, I am starting to be more attentive to the people in my surroundings, like my family, friends and even lecturers. While they are talking to me, I will be looking more at their body language, expressions and the tone they are using.

In this blog post, I would be focusing more on a particular situation which I found interesting. Just a few weeks back, I was involved in a donation drive which is in collaboration with my neighbourhood old folk home. In this donation drive, we were required to ask for donations from the public, using donation money pouches. Being involved in this type of event, it requires me to approach lots of strangers and ask them for donation, giving me opportunities to observe their nonverbal cues.

Throughout the event before approaching someone, I would observe them first, not in a creepy sense, but just to see if they were walking at a quick pace, wearing ear buds or using their phone intently. Those nonverbal cues would indicate to me that if they are rushing to their destination and would likely ignore me when approached.

In another case, when someone who seems to be walking in at ease pace and who are not busy using their phones or not wearing ear buds would be more approachable for me, their nonverbal cues allowed me assume that they could have some time to spare when I approach them and listen to what I am doing and they might want to get involved.

That being said so, even after approaching them, I would pay attention to how they are reacting to me talking to them. Most people that I have approached before seemed fairly uninterested in listening to what I was doing, I interpret as such due to the way they are showing their non-verbal cue. They would have absent expression on their face, looking somewhere else and would be pointing their foot in another direction, which indicates that they are not paying attention to me and are ready to leave at any time. When that happens, it usually is my cue to stop talking and let them back to do their own business.

On rare occasions where people would be interested in what I was doing and listening attentively to my explanation and what my donation drive was about. They would show nonverbal cues of keeping eye contact with me, nodding their heads and leaning closer to me.

The trend that I have noticed is teenagers and younger people are less likely to stop and listen to what I have to say and just dismissing me and rushing off. However, those of age 40 and over are more likely to stop and listen to what I am doing and are more likely to donate. This could be due to various reasons, for example, maybe teenagers feel that they do not have the financial ability to make a donation so why would they want to waste their time listening to me.

Maybe my inferences of why they are not interested were wrong but there is certainly a reason why they are so, right? If you could provide me another reason why that is so, please comment down below.

Being in a communication class have made me noticed all these things that people are telling me through their actions and I realised that I have become more aware of it after that particular discussion in class. being able to quickly identify the different nonverbal cues made me a better communicator, as I will be able to detect what my audience is feeling and approach them the appropriate way.

Last edited – 19 Feb 2016

Commented on

My groupmates-      Daphne Tan

Yawen

From other groups-Hany (6 C’s)

Mei Ying

 

 

 

 

Strengths and Challenges in Communicating

Nobody is born with good communication skills, and it goes the same for me. My strengths and weaknesses in communication were shaped through the experiences and opportunities that I had throughout the years. With every interaction I have with other people, my perception of the communication is always changing. My experiences of communication are slightly different from the others as I have taken more than one leadership role in the past (being a student counselor and a vice-captain in my club) and those opportunities shaped me into the person I am today. taking up several leadership roles forced me to step out of my comfort zone and talk to many people whom I’m not close with, tasks from passing down instructions to my club members to presenting to my entire school cohort! I have taken up all these challenges and was faced with different results, having both negative and positive responses before. All these experiences made me realized what will make a good communicator.

Since young, I am always the talkative one in class and had quite a large group of friends. Seeing that, my teacher asked my opinion in taking up several leadership roles within the school community, and those roles forced me to step out of my comfort zone and talk to many people whom I’m not close with, whether it is being passing down instructions to my club members or presenting to my school cohort. I have taken up all these challenges bravely and was faced with different results, having both negative and positive responses before. All these experiences have given me chances of knowing what works and what doesn’t on different occasions.

From what I understand, one of the characteristics of being a good communicator in any scenarios is having confidence. To me, having confidence is being able to convey the message with conviction and clarity and I would like to think that I have confidence in communication. Personally, my philosophy is if you don’t believe in what you are saying, nobody else will.  To be confident, preparation is an important factor. Depending on the context and content of the communication, I understand the amount of preparation required to be convincing and be able to clear any doubts that are presented to me as from my experience, being knowledgeable in any content will make me confidence in conveying my message to others. One example will be when I was required to do a presentation regarding Nuclear Energy last semester, with enough research and clear understanding of the topic, I was confident in presentation and was able to answer any questions given to me.

However, one’s strengths could seem to be another’s weakness. Confidence is definitely a good characteristic, but there is a thin line between confidence and over-confidence, which could be viewed as arrogance. With this in mind, I am stating arrogance as my challenges in communication, which does happen at times. An example would be when I am knowledgeable regarding a certain topic and when I try to explain the concept or idea to the others, I might come across as arrogant. For example, once I was discussing my favourite movie with my friend and when she didn’t understand the plot and misunderstood it when I was trying to convey and explain what it was about, she mentioned that I came across as rude and arrogant. Reflecting upon it, I think it was the way I commented on the movie and I said things like “Really??? you didn’t get that immediately?” “I thought it was obvious”, instead of being understanding about it. This is something that I recently found out about and I would like to focus on changing that characteristic of me. All advice and feedback are welcome.

 

commented on Goh Meiying, Tan Zong Hong, Rati and Syai’s blogpost.

Last edited on: 03/02/2016