Critical Reflection on SEM2902

Throughout the course, the key takeaways that have impacted me would be learning the verbal and non-verbal communications. I believe learning these is the most essential necessity for effective listening. Effective listening can come in many aspects, but the for this post, it would be focused to our group project, effective listening within the family. Effective listening within the family is a very important topic as everyone will definitely face it at some points in their life.

Our group has found out that there are barriers that hinder effective listening within the family and have agreed to this 3 main key points to them. They are; ego, status within the family and failure to understand which was presented in our slides during the presentation day. We feel that these 3 points are the most important keys that hinders effective listening within the family. Firstly, ego works in a way a person's self esteem is more higher importance than listening to others. In a way, when a person were to speak another in a family, their ego would hinder effective listening. Secondly, status within the family is where the money-maker in the family would demand the others in the family to follow his demands. For example, if he/she were to demand the son/daughter to be a nurse, she/he is expected to be a nurse without any obligations. Lastly, failure to understand is where within a family, a person fails to understand or misinterpret what the other party is trying to say. Working on these 3 skills would help to improve effective listening within the family.

Within this project, it has taught me the importance of effective listening within the family. Quite often, these small issues are often neglected as they are seen to be useless or for my case, I am usually not around at home often. With that, i feel that one should adopt or improve these skills at home so as to be a effective listener within the family. I admit that i am always not around at home. Therefore, in the future whenever i have the time to be at home, i will put in a little bit in more effort for effective listening by taking note of the 3 key points listed out by our group and to use understanding of verbal and non-verbal communications.

Finally, i would like to reemphasize that effective listening is a very important topic for everyone, especially within the family as they are the few people that you would see everyday. Regardless if they are around or not, your family are the ones who are always there for you. Thus, i feel that the key takeaways from this project is to not only improve your effective listening for other aspects in life, but within the family as well.

Thank you for the time and effort for reading this blog. With that, i shall end my blog.

Critical Reflection on Project Learning

The topic that my team and I had chosen for our project is Effective Listening while resolving conflicts within the family. The focus for this post would be on my oral presentation skills.

I was the first to present in my team and to elaborate on the introduction on our topic. When I present, I would usually display a picture or two to the audience. This will in tend grasp their attention and make them ponder and guess on what the topic I would be presenting. This is one of the skills that I picked up on the module Composition during last trimester. Saying said so, the only time that I recalled presenting to the class was only last trimester during the module and once during the mock presentation this trimester. 

In the module interpersonal and workplace communication, one of the key things that I have learnt is verbal and non-verbal communication. I believe this is an important topic to be covered during the module. It helps us to improve on active listening, interpreting verbal messages and read their non-verbal. This is somewhat similar to the group project that my team has presented. Relating back to the presentation that I have given last Friday, I feel that I may have actually done some wrongs during the mock presentation.

During the mock presentation, the feedback that I received were that I may have actually dragged my presentation by repeating the same points so as to make it seem longer. At the same time, I was constantly seen checking my watch which was seem to be a distraction to the audience. These are where the verbal and non-verbal communication comes into play. For verbal communication, I was constantly repeating the same points to the audience which was a distraction. To me, I thought I was reemphasizing my points, but to the audience, it was seen as a distraction as I was constantly repeating them. For my non-verbal communications, I was constantly checking my watch which was also a distraction to the audience. I have to agree on this one as they may think that I am time-oriented, who cares about the time. These are the takeaways for to improve myself and be prepared for the final presentation.

On the final presentation, I could say that I’ve improved a bit. I made sure I was not reemphasizing on the same points over and over again. And also importantly, improve on my non-verbal communications by maintaining eye contacts to the audience instead of my watch instead. The only flaw this time was that I may have dragged the time too long for the audience instead by exceeding the time limit of 5 minutes and at the fact that I was pretty nervous. Some may have not noticed it but I’m sure Brad has noticed my nervousness. I believe I should improve myself in this aspect in order to improve myself for any future presentations.

During this module, I’ve learnt that I could improve myself once I get feedback from people. Constant feedback from people enhances my learning and also the ability to improve myself. Moreover, by applying what I have learnt during this module such as verbal and non-verbal communication can come in handy for any presentations or communication as not everyone is the same thus, different people may react differently when communicating. Lastly, I may lack confidence during presentations. Having mentioned all those points, I believe feedback, verbal and non-verbal communications and confidence are the few key takeaways that could be useful in the future.

In the future, I should take all of the key takeaways that I have mention to improve myself in terms of presentation wise. Those feedback that I’ve received will be forever remembered for me and to evaluate myself so that I would not repeat any of the flaws. Putting aside feedback, I should learn to better judge myself when presenting and to look at people’s verbal and non-verbal communications. By judging this, I would be able to know when to stop so as to not bore the audience. Finally, I should practice more on my verbal presentations so that I could be more confident for future presentations.

I appreciate the time and effort you read this post of mine. With that, I shall end my post.

Re-edited 17/4/2016

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

Interpersonal conflicts are inevitable as they are one of the few encounters where everyone will face in their life. These conflicts usually occurs when there is a misunderstanding between two parties or more. From my perspective, one should find the root of the conflict in order to resolve it before it gets out of hands.

For this post, the conflict that I will be describing is between my brother and sister. Being the youngest in the family, my sister always get the luxury of being pampered at home. My brother, on the other hand is 7 years older than her and is considered as the responsible one among us three siblings. My mom is the housewife in the family and does not work while my dad has just retired from his workplace and is no longer employed. My dad intends to use his savings earned for my mom’s and dad’s retirement. As both my sister and I are still schooling, my older brother is now supporting us both by working two jobs.

An incident occurred last Friday when my sister asked my dad for some pocket money when she wanted to go out. Upon hearing the conversation, my older brother who just reached home from his work, started to scold my sister for asking money from my dad. My sister started to argue back at my brother as she claims that the money she asked for is for her school project.  Despite the explanation from my sister, my brother was still persistent and demanded by shouting to my sister that she should not ask for money from my dad as she was so used to getting it from my dad instead. Upon hearing my brother shouting, my sister started to cry and locked herself up in her room.

Until today, both my brother and sister are no longer talking to each other. It is true that my sister is pampered at times but perhaps my brother should not have responded that way towards her. My brother on the other hand, who is often tired from his two jobs to support us, finds it difficult to understand the needs of my sister.  If you were in my situation, what would have been done to make the situation better?

Edited: 18/03/2016

Commented on:
Mei Ying
Kok Zheng
Steven

Responses to Mr Han

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Customer Support Services

Team Members: Js, Hyirah

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Team Members: Meiying and Daphne.

On the webpage “What is Emotional Intelligence?” published by the University of New Hampshire, John D Mayer defined emotion as a feeling state whereas intelligence is the capacity to reason information. Mayer mentioned that the general definition of emotional intelligence is the capacity to reason about emotions, and of emotions to enhance thinking. However, the author defined emotional intelligence as an ability to recognize the meanings of emotion and their relationships, and to reason and problem-solve on the basis of the individual. The author believed that emotional intelligence involves the capacity to perceive emotions, assimilate emotion-related feelings, understand the information of those emotions, and manage them accordingly.

Evaluating Verbal and Nonverbal Behavior

Different people may react differently to different situations. Verbal or nonverbal interactions amongst people can be attributed to culture, gender or age difference. Thus, every single person would definitely have different ways of interaction if you were to observe them closely. If we were to compare the males and females, we can observe differences between them in terms of verbal and nonverbal communication.

During lunch last Friday, i overhead one of the conversations that took place between two teenage Caucasian girls. Just a few tables away from them, I noticed two other teenage Malay guys who were wearing collared shirts, having their own conversation as well. As I was seated quite close to the two groups, I could actually listen to both of the conversations that were going on between the two groups.

When the girls talked, they seemed to be using a lot of eye contacts when talking to each other. They were focused on the conversation as they were constantly looking at each other while waving their arms around explaining details of what was being shared. The guys however, seemed to be in a relaxed manner and uses less eye contact as they were constantly checking their phones throughout while conversing. Based on these two groups, their interactions can be based on gender and culture differences.

Culture plays a role in communication. As what was seen, the guys were constantly using their phones while conversing. This may seem rude to other cultures but not in Singapore. In Singapore, this is a normal trend where people may be using their phones while conversing. The girls however were not using their phones while conversing. Based on the two groups, culture differences plays a role in how we communicate.

Gender differences also plays a role in communication. As what was mentioned, the girls seemed to be well connected to each other based on their verbal and nonverbal interactions. The girls seemed to be chatty while the guys are not as they were constantly checking their phones and this illustrates their nonverbal interaction that both may not be interested in the conversation. Based on these two groups, I feel that gender affects how people interact with each other.

To sum it up, I believe that gender and culture differences plays a role in how we communicate with each other. What are your thoughts on this?

Edited 25/02/2016

Commented on:
Jia Sheng - 7 Cs in Communication
Marcus
Hanny

Strengths and Challenges in communicating

What is communication? Communication is an act of exchanging information or news and plays a very important role in our everyday lives. Developing a good communication habit is an essential skill that will benefit us. Many people have different ways in communicating, be it their culture language, hand signs and so on.  

I believe everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses when it come to communicating. For me, one of the strengths that I possess in communicating is that I am an active listener. I would pay very close attention to what the other party has to say. My guess is this is probably because of the sincerity that I provide when listening to them. I would simply listen, maintain eye contact and only comment or speak when the other party is done talking. From there, I am able to view things from the other party's perspective and understand what he/she really meant. 

I do too possess weaknesses in communication. It may sound coincidental due to the pronunciation of my name(Syai has the same pronunciation as shy), as I am actually quite shy when speaking to others. This is probably because I may not have much to say or sometimes I might lack confidence here and there to just speak up. Perhaps I should pluck up my courage and speak up a bit more than how I usually do. I should work on these issues to be efficient in communicating. I do hope I can improve on my communication skills throughout this course. 

Editted 31/01/16

Commented on:
Yar Zar
Marcus
Mei Ying