Critical Reflection on Learning Points in Course

Although i always complain to my friends why do we need to study communication when we are studying in an engineering degree, this is the module i always look forward to attend class. As i attend more classes, i realized how important is communication to any job irregardless of field. Some human are born with talent to be a good communicator but that does not mean that the rest that were not born with talent will be a bad communicator for life. Communication skills can be considered as a raw gem. As the polishing amount and time increases, the raw gem can be polish into a valuable and priceless diamond. This is the most critical learning point in this module.

Critical Reflection on Project Learning

My last lesson in interpersonal and workplace communications was a memorable one as that was the day where I presented for my project titled “Miscommunication within university project group". I learnt about the different types of miscommunication in this project. Misunderstanding was the only type of miscommunication that I knew before the project. I had learnt that there are three different types of miscommunication: Misunderstanding, Misinterpretation & No communication.

Presentation skills is something that can never be achieved overnight. It requires lots of practice, knowledge and experience. There are three areas that a presenter must focus on in order to give a good presentation based on the knowledge that I learnt in this course. Firstly, it is the knowledge on the topic that you will be presenting. Fully equipped with knowledge about on the presentation topic allows the presenter to be confident. Secondly, it is verbal delivery to your audience. Good verbal communication allows the presenter to deliver smoothly. Lastly, it is non-verbal communication during the presentation. Reduced body movement during presentation allows the audience to give the presenter full attention. I was given two opportunities to do presentation for this project. The first was a mock presentation while the other was the final presentation. After the mock presentation, I realized that I do not have sufficient knowledge on my topic, my delivery was not smooth and there was little eye contact with my audience as I rely on the screen too much during the presentation. With the aim of doing well for the final presentation, I came up with solutions to improve my presentation. Firstly, I had the intention to improve on my knowledge on the topic, prepare well for my presentation so my delivery will be smooth and having more eye contact with the audience. I restricted my movement to avoid distraction during presentation. During presentation review, I am very glad and thankful to be told that my objectives were met.

Conclusion could be made in this project that having good knowledge on the topic when presenting is very important. Good mental state, preparation done for smooth delivery, stop reliance on notes and having good eye contact with audience are the keys to a good presentation.

Response to Mr Beta Han

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Creative Customer Care Consultant

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

Interpersonal conflicts can be an outcome due to something trivial or serious. A conflict can occur due to a simple misunderstanding, if not handled carefully, it could lead to fights which results in casualties. Interpersonal conflicts are inevitable due to differing opinions and upbringing of every individual.

There was this interpersonal conflict incident which involved both my parents and myself as a third party. My mother and I were at home doing some administrative stuff and we did not have the time to go out for lunch. Thus, my father offered to buy take away for our lunch out of goodwill. When my father reached home, we were elated as we were famished. When my mother opened the take away box, her face grew sour. She asked my father"How do you expect me to eat? The rice are full of gravy! You know me for twenty plus years. Yet, you still don't know that I do not like to eat rice with gravy!". My father responded her like this"We have the luxury to have food to eat, so don't complain and just eat." My mother grew angry and disappointed at my father's response. She went to resume her administrative work and told me to finish up her share.

The main problem of this conflict was my mother did not like to eat rice that are filled with gravy. The take away that my father brought home was full of gravy. Thus, resulted in my mother's anger. My mother was disappointed at my father because after being married for twenty years, there might be possibility that my father still do not know her preferences.

If you were my father, what could be done to savage the situation?

Four Ways to Improve Your Emotional Communication (Hyirah, Angela, Zheng, Lin)

This online article “4 Ways to Improve Your Emotional Communication” written by Susan Krauss Whitbourne (2014) in Psychology Today, focuses on four skills: 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, they 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 reacts to various situations. By doing so, a person will be able to have a better prediction on how they will react to the similar situation in the future. Thus, helping them in making better decisions.

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

These are the 4 skills to successful emotion communication.

Edited 03/03/2016

Evaluating Verbal and Nonverbal Behavior

Communication comprise of verbal communication and non-verbal communication. Verbal communication mean the exchange of information between two or more person through speaking. Non-Verbal communication mean the exchange of information between two or more person through body postures,facial expressions or body gestures.

My grandmother is 80 years old and having difficulties in walking. Both of my parents are working and they do not have the time to look after my grandmother. Thus, my family employed a foreign domestic helper to take care of my grandmother, cook for her and take care of her daily needs. My grandmother is poorly educated and illiterate. Thus, she cannot speak any language other than her own hakka dialect. My family's foreign domestic worker only know how to communicate in Indonesian and basic English as she originated from Indonesia. Thus, there is this language barrier between my grandmother and her.

There was this incident in the morning where both of them had problems communicating with each other. My grandmother wanted to eat sliced cucumber fried with egg for lunch but she did not how to communicate with my family's foreign domestic helper. My grandmother pointed to the fridge while she sat on the sofa and instructed my family's domestic helper with dialect to open the fridge and take out the cucumber. However, she does not understand but only making guesses on what my grandmother want. My grandmother raised her voice louder and louder each time as she got more and more frustrated until I decided to intervene. I told my family's domestic helper to open the fridge and take out the cucumber. After my family's domestic helper took out the cucumber and show it to my grandmother, my grandmother took the cucumber and demonstrated how to cut the cucumber according to the shape she want and to fry it with egg. After my family's domestic helper seen my grandmother's hand gestures, she understood that my grandmother want the cucumber to be sliced and fried with egg.

From this incident, I understood that even when two or more person came from different culture or age and there is no common language between them, there is still a communication method that works which is non-verbal communication. I am glad that we learn verbal and non-verbal communication in class as I am a person who is insensitive and not observant. I tend to hurt peoples' feelings unintentionally when speaking. After going through these communication classes, i hope that I will be able to overcome this weakness of mine.

Commented blog
Zong Hong -> 7 Cs of Communication
Syai
Mei Ying

Edited on 19/02/2016

Presentation is one of the many channels in interpersonal communication. My strength in my presentation skill is that I am confident to present to a crowd. As for my weakness, I rely heavily on script for my presentation. There was this instance that I was chosen for a presentation that involved elaboration on holy song for my duty in my temple. Every speaker will be allocated 15 minutes for the whole presentation. One presentation consists of one read through by audience, elaboration on the meanings of the song by the speaker and singing of the song twice by the audience. Time allocation for each segment depends on the length of the song. I am still able to remember my horrid first presentation vividly.

Before the presentation, preparatory work must be done. In my case, I consulted one of the seniors in the temple to understand more about the meanings of the song. Thus I recorded notes on what he told me word for word. I memorized them so that I will able to present the content so as not to disgrace myself in front of audience. Before the presentation, I felt nervous and worried that I might screwed up. During presentation,my mind blanked out. I experienced stage fright as this was my first time, "er,hmphh,ar" were only words that came out from my mouth. As I could not elaborate further, I decided to end my presentation with the last segment of singing the song twice by the audience. After the presentation end, I walked down the aisle with mixed feelings. I was relieved that presentation was over and disappointed for not be able to present well.

Plucking courage to present was what I had done the best, and failure on conveying information was what I had done the worst. I analyzed my performance and approach after the presentation and realized that memorizing is not the best way. Understanding the holy songs meanings is the best way to present as I will be able to share on my understanding of the songs meanings. Besides that, the information that I want to convey to the audience must be processed first.Processes like packaging in terms of forming and arranging the sentence structures. Reviewing the sentences in terms of filtering and correcting grammar mistakes. These processes allows the information to be convey to the audience in order to achieve effective communication.

Commented from GROUP E:
Marcus
Lin Zaw

Commented from GROUP F:
Zong Hong
Mei Ying
Rati

Edited 06/02/2016