Critical Reflection on Learning in the Course

It’s been a long way since the start of this English module and had been challenging as well as interesting to say the least. I remember that at the very first day of lesson, I was nervous and afraid of coming to a class where there will be new classmates, new lecturer and new classroom with no one from my previous class. However, I am glad that I have stayed on and not changed my class as I would not have been able to know such wonderful people otherwise. My classmates were accepting of me, the lecturer was strict and yet understanding and my project group members were always there to help when needed.

In this post, I am going to share about whether I could meet the objectives that I have set myself for at the start of this module. To recap, the objectives were noticing other people’s non-verbal cues and the ability to take lesser amount of time to choose my words carefully when I am communicating to the target audience. These two objectives are hard to meet and I sure had a hard time just trying to meet either one.

I am going to start with how far I have gone in noticing other people’s non-verbal cues. I have made some progress in this area by listening and looking at the other person’s cues through active listening and non-verbal communication skills. By paying attention to what the other person is saying, I could pick up the underlying message and from the outer display of actions, I was able to pick up what they wish to say or what they would like to do. However, as this requires a great deal of attention span and energy, I was not able to keep it up for conversations that last too long. Although I may have said this, I believe that I was able to achieve the goal of knowing how to take note of people’s non-verbal cues. This can be proven in my project team members that were hard to understand by the rest of my class. I have tried hard to understand their train of thoughts and thus produced great results. I thank them for this much improvement.

Next, on to the second objective. This objective is one that I have a lot of trouble with. Reason being that if I were to think too much, the topic of conversation would have shifted to the next topic or that it would have progressed further away from where it was at. An example of this would be when a topic was originally about where to have lunch with a group of friends; but as I took my time to give an input, they might have already decided on the place and cuisine to have. The result, I think that I have made little to none improvement in this area. However, due to this being an important skill to have, I will be continuing to do my best to improve myself during my stay as a college student.

With this, I will have set a new goal to meet before I graduate and begin my life as a contributing society member. And that would be to gain the ability to lead a team well by communicating with different types of people (by applying the leadership skills), resolving a conflict with another people due to conflicting ideas or due to either party not being able to express their thoughts well (by applying conflict management skills).

To end the post on a good note, I would like to thank everyone from my class, my readers and my commentators. Thank you for the great comments and support you have been giving me. I hope to be able to work with you guys sometime soon.

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

Conflicts often happen in our everyday life. It can happen due to fear, sense of fairness, attitudes, needs and different viewpoints. Conflicts are definitely no stranger to us. Now, allow me to use a hypothetical situation of a certain interpersonal conflict situation.

A group of three teens were put in the same group to work on a project that requires them to build a website and to make a presentation on how they came about with making the website. The three teens were called Sally, John and Tim. They discussed about the project and decided that the most time saving way was to split the job among the three of them. Sally then asked, “What do each of you want to do? I’m going to be the website designer.” There was a period of silence as Tim and John pondered. Tim finally spoke up, “I think I would do the presentation slides and since John is better in coding, we shall leave the coding to John.” Sally nodded her head in agreement but however, the expression on John’s face did not show that he was happy with the agreement. John’s face was contorted in anger and shouted angrily “Why do I have to do all the coding while all of you get the easy work?” Tim was utterly displeased with what John was saying. “Who ever said doing presentation slides is easy? On the contrary, coding is way easier!” Was what Tim thought to himself. “Coding is so easy to do! How can you say such things when you are the one who actually got the easy work?” Tim retorted back with his voice raised. “Then why don’t I see you doing the coding then?” John said in a challenging manner. This led to both John and Tim arguing about who would be doing the coding and who would be doing the presentation slides.

From the above situation, it could be seen that John and Tim utilized fight to resolve the conflict. John was allocated to do the coding as he is better compared to the other 2. However, it is possible that John actually wanted Tim to do the coding with him as it is better to have two heads thinking than one. The conflict could have been contained if John used collaboration and pointed out his displeasure in a different tone, like “I feel that the coding for the project would prove to be difficult. Could Sally or Tim share the workload with me?”

Being in a conflict, one would want to emerge victorious. However, the key to conflicts are not a matter of who wins and lose. It’s about how to resolve it. Should a situation alike to this arise, how would you manage it?

Evaluating listening skills (Revised)

In daily conversations, it gets hard when the listener does not show active listening skills or the communicator being unable to read the nonverbal cues given by the listener. To give an example, I will be using a scenario I observed between two friends named Charles (whom is 26 and Alphonse whom is 20).

(It started with Alphonse complaining to Charles about his tight schedule for the upcoming semester. Alphonse complained that his friends from other colleges are having a schedule that is not as tight as Alphonse. Charles replied that Alphonse should be glad about it as this implies that the college is thriving for their students to achieve greater heights. At this moment, Alphonse let out a deep sigh and thought to himself why Charles could not get the point he was putting across and looked away from the conversation. Alphonse then started looking at his phone with his lips protruding while Charles continued talking. Upon noticing Alphonse silence after a period of time, Charles started questioning whether Alphonse was actually listening to what he has to say and that led on to an argument.

In the example above, Alphonse displayed a nonverbal cue of him being disappointed by the reply given by Charles as shown by Alphonse breathing a deep sigh after Charles reply. The reason was because Charles did not attempt to read the underlying message from Alphonse that he wanted to have a fun study life along with his friends. By having a tight schedule, it would only result in Alphonse not being able to hang out with his friends. Alphonse being 6 years younger than Charles could still have the mind-set of wanting to maintain a balanced work life structure where he could have fun while studying hard for the degree. However, Alphonse being the younger one and not having enough experience to make sound judgement, started pouting and not replying to Charles. When Charles questioned Alphonse, he did not notice that Alphonse is unhappy. This lack of nonverbal cue of not reading a person’s facial expression led on to the argument.)

In daily conversations, there are always people whom have shorter listening span than others. It gets annoying when one has to keep repeating the same sentence over and over again to the person one is talking to. To give an example of that, I will be using a scenario between two people named them Charles (age 30) and Alphonse (age 20).

The scenario involves the two friends, Alphonse complaining to his oversea friend Charles about his tight time schedule for the new semester. One day, Alphonse comes home after learning of his new schedule for the new semester and called Charles in hope Charles will comfort Alphonse. Alphonse started complaining by first stating that his local friends from other campus are having a lighter schedule as compared to him. Charles replied that it is normal for the schedules to differ from one campus to another. However, Alphonse replied that his schedules should not have differed that much as they are still locally located. Charles said that it might not always hold true as different campus may thrive for different schedules so as to push their students to a higher height. Alphonse felt irritated at this instance and began having a bias mind set which led to an argument.

The above example shows that the difference in culture will lead to the lack of understanding between both parties. Charles understands where Alphonse is coming from however; he did not attempt to give words of encouragement, like stating that the tight schedule was so that the students could be pushed to higher heights and Alphonse should be rather glad about it. Instead, Charles wanted to brush the topic off by stating that different campus has different schedules.

The lesson we can learn from this would be to listen to the other party and to try to understand where they are coming from. The listener should try to understand why the speaker has spoken in the way the speaker did and ask questions if there are any doubts.

In daily conversations, there are always people whom have shorter listening span than others. It gets annoying when one has to keep repeating the same sentence over and over again to the person one is talking to. To give an example of that, I will be using a scenario between two people named them Charles (age 30) and Alphonse (age 20). 

The scenario involves the two friends, Alphonse complaining to his oversea friend Charles about his tight time schedule for the new semester. One day, Alphonse comes home after learning of his new schedule for the new semester and called Charles in hope Charles will comfort Alphonse. Alphonse started complaining by first stating that his local friends from other campus are having a lighter schedule as compared to him. Charles replied that it is normal for the schedules to differ from one campus to another. However, Alphonse replied that his schedules should not have differed that much as they are still locally located. Charles said that it might not always hold true as different campus may thrive for different schedules so as to push their students to a higher height. Alphonse felt irritated at this instance and began having a bias mind set which led to an argument. 

The above example shows that the difference in culture will lead to the lack of understanding between both parties. Charles understands where Alphonse is coming from however; he did not attempt to give words of encouragement, like stating that the tight schedule was so that the students could be pushed to higher heights and Alphonse should be rather glad about it. Instead, Charles wanted to brush the topic off by stating that different campus has different schedules.

The lesson we can learn from this would be to listen to the other party and to try to understand where they are coming from. The listener should try to understand why the speaker has spoken in the way the speaker did and

In interpersonal communication, Emotional Intelligence (EI or EQ) can be used to improve the communications between you and the other party. Emotional Intelligence can be defined as the reasoning behind emotions and using that reasoning to promote emotional growth.

There are 5 components that make up Emotional Intelligence. They are self - awareness, self - regulation, internal motivation, empathy and social skills.
Self - awareness is the awareness of one's emotions and the effect those emotions might have on the others. For example, when one is explaining his/ her idea to the other party, the amount of passion will drive the others to go along with what one has explained.
Self - regulation is about controlling oneself from acting on emotion and not thinking about first. For example, one knows that he/ she is short on cash but sees an item that one really wants, he/ she will buy it on impulse instead of thinking of how short on cash one is already in.
Internal motivation is the motivation to finish the thing that one wanted. For example, when a person is building a model kit, he/ she must have the motivation to finish the model kit instead of doing it halfway and leaving it one side.
Empathy is the ability to empathize another person's emotion.  For example, person A is complaining to person B on how hard math is. Person B can empathize with person A as person B knows how hard math is as well.
Social skills is the ability to communicate with other people on a common ground. For example, person A is able to get along with the people around and lead his/ her team to success.

When faced with an obstacle, we could use the six second's strategy to decide the choice to make. The six second's strategy require one to know oneself, choose oneself or give oneself.
To know oneself would be to have self -awareness, self - honesty and to know of one's right.
To choose oneself would be to choose the 'right' choice even though one know there are no immediate reward, prioritizing the things to do, not act rashly, be an optimist and to be able to account to oneself.
To give oneself would be to recognize another person's effort and to choose choices not based solely on one's own emotions but to the consensus of the team that one is in.

Having said these, it still is hard to understand one's emotion and there are times where even if we have this knowledge about our emotional intelligence, we would still act on impulse, not care about another person's emotion and go through with our selfishness. I hope that I will be able to control myself more and keep this in mind when I communicate with other people in the future.

(Revised Version)

(There are various strengths in communications and) I feel that my strength in communicating with others would be (the) appropriateness of my language used in different contexts. As the topic of a conversation changes, I will do my best to use the correct terms in the subject of interest. There may be times that I use technical terms to describe the subject due to the knowledge of the (other) party and the need to feel emphatic for those who are learning the subject now. (For example,) in the case where a presentation is to be done, I will use the right terms as there is a need to ensure that everyone is on the same page. 

The challenges I faced in communicating would be the lack of daily used vocabulary, sudden forgetfulness of the word to use and misinterpretation of the message that I am delivering across. (It is precisely due to these challenges that) I feel I am studying everyday as life is about studying. Even when in class or when speaking with others, there are times where (the other) party will use words that I have no prior knowledge of. In such cases, I have learn a new word which can be added to my list of daily used vocabulary.

Communication is hard when the right word does not (surface in) the mind. At times like these, I will try to use a substitute (word that has the closest meaning). Though (this method may not work) all the time, it can (at the very least) bring the idea across. There was a time when I was presenting and the way I bring a point across was interpreted wrongly as I tried to substitute a word for another. Such was a lesson I learn in the process that one must always remember their slides and the terms that he or she will be using.

 (Having said about these challenges, I would like to develop a certain level of communication skill that will enable me to communicate with others more effectively. There are two objectives I would like to have met before I exit from the current English Communication Module.

Firstly, I would like to try noticing other people's non-verbal cues. This is because when I speak to a group of people, I would rarely notice the receiving parties reactions and meanings behind what they have said. Thus resulting in diverting from the topic they are on.

Secondly, I would like to take lesser amount of time to choose my words carefully when I am communicating to the target audience. When I am trying to convey a message across to the other party in a presentation or lecture style, I tend to take a short moment to think of how to construct my sentences so that my message will not be misinterpreted. However, there will be instances where the other party starts asking questions before I could continue on. This is the reason behind why I would like to think faster while having the right words used.)