Final Reflection

http://ylinkhalton.tumblr.com/post/18798686825/life-begins-at-the-end-of-your-comfort-zone-have

My friend introduced me to ES2007S telling me how useful it will be in preparing us for presentation and effective communication.I remembered the decision on taking this course was a huge hurdle to me. Communication is never my forte, getting in to this course will mean I need to step out of my comfort zone and speak in front of the class. In the end, I decided to take a big step forward and go ahead by taking this module alone.

When I was rushing for projects and deadlines for ES2007S, my friends asked me why did I take this course in the first place. I too questioned myself once or twice throughout this course. Having been through the whole ES2007S course, I realized I found the answer.

ES2007S taught me about techniques in effective communications, presentation skills and professional writing skills. Even though a lot of people think these are all common sense and taking up a course on communication is not necessary, I beg to differ. ES2007S provides a platform for us to practice presentation skills, where classmates and teacher provide immediate feedback to us. I found it extremely useful and really glad all the feedback are done truthfully and directly. Other modules in NUS do not provide such platform to share ideas on each other presentation. 

My friend once told me that nobody is born a speaker and even a good speaker need lots of practice in order to succeed. Through this course, I saw all the hard work put in by my peers and I see that those which are better in presentation did put in a lot of effort to improve too. This is an encouragement to me and remind me to put in extra effort to improve my communication skills even after ES2007S ended.

Really glad that my peers are all friendly and approachable. ES2007S is definitely one of my most enjoyable modules so far in NUS. :)

Blog post 5: Reflection on Oral Presentation

Our group project came to an end when we finished our oral presentation last Tuesday. Preparation for our oral presentation was considered short(less than 1 week), however given our content, time was considered sufficient.

We prepared our own individual slides and then come together to discuss about the flow of our presentation by making sure there was no overlapping content, restructuring our whole presentation and  ensure the workload was distributed equally. I think our flow of presentation was smooth when we switched from one speaker to another and we referred back to each other content appropriately.

My purpose of the whole presentation was to persuade our targeted audience (provost) that there was a necessity for implementing a compulsory curriculum in NUS.  I reminded myself on that and I altered my speech to cater to it. We only had five minutes each to present, hence selecting key information was important.

During presentation, I took note of previous comments from my peers and Dr Radhika and tried to put up my best performance. Things like not folding my arms, not holding scripts and remaining eye contact with the audience were some key important take-offs from my peer teaching. Hence, I make sure I did not make those mistakes again.

However, I still think I had not structure my presentation well enough. For example, my presentation still lacks on creativity, audience participation and facial expression which are essential to engage the audience. I am still quite self-conscious and had not really open up myself during the presentation.

I also think that my presentation lack of other types of visuals or audio aids. Perhaps showing a short video or maybe interaction with the audience may gain better consensus from them. Also, there were still some minor errors on the PowerPoint slides which should not be made.

Overall, I learned a lot from this presentation and was definitely an important experience for me to gain better insights on oral presentation. I appreciate all the peers reviews and Dr Radhika's feedbacks and definitely will take note of all the key points and improve next time.

Fostering Intercultural Communication

Intercultural scenario

Singapore is a multicultural and multiracial country and it is not surprising that people from all around the world gather in Singapore. With 30% of Singapore residents who are foreigners, fostering intercultural understanding is extremely important and essential to ensure social cohesion here.

Cultural differences are the basis for misunderstandings between people from different backgrounds. For example, when I first saw Bangladeshi guys hold hands in public in Singapore I felt  it was extremely unacceptable. To them it was their norm to hold hands to represent brotherhood and/or sign of respect between the males. In Singaporean’s context and in many other cultural contexts, holding hands is also the sign of friendship but usually restricts to children and females. Hence when my friends and I saw them holding hands together, we will always associate them as homosexuals or even despise them. After we knew the truth, we show more tolerance towards guys holding hands and eventually accepted it.  

Picture taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holding_hands#cite_note-0

Apparently, according to CBS news, the Americans show less approval to this act when the two leaders, President Bush and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah holding hands as they strolled in a 2005 diplomatic meeting. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/27/eveningnews/main691413.shtml I think what President Bush did is a form of respect to their culture and by indicating they are friends by holding hands. It was acceptable to me when I knew the reason behind this practice of the Arabs.  

Fundamentals of effective communication

In order to stimulate effective communication between people from different cultural groups, I think we should first identify what are the problems we face as different individuals when interacting. Then we should gather more information on it to draw the reasons behind these differences in cultural practices. I think once we know the reasons for the differences in cultural practices, we will tend to accept it. Well at least for me. 

I think our greatest mistake is stereotyping people which leads to more misunderstandings and resentments between different individuals. For example, Singaporean always stereotype foreign Bangladeshi workers as being uneducated people and all of them are bad who ogle at girls at Sentosa beach. I hate to say it but I think I am guilty of this too. We ended up despising and discriminating them. However, not all of them are behave this way and they in fact put in a lot of effort in helping to build our nation. In fact most of them are polite and friendly as I always saw them offering their seats in MRT to those who need it. I had read a recent article that had being circulating around at Facebook where a Singaporean shared a different perspective on them while working together with them. http://newnation.sg/2012/01/working-with-the-banglas-on-new-years-eve/

Lastly, we should all be more ethnorelative rather than ethnocentric so that we are able to adapt into a new environment quickly and also produce a more conducive place to embrace people from different parts of the world. Being open-minded is essentially important to foster a good intercultural communication.

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

In the journey of growing up, interpersonal conflict usually revolved around people that we communicate with, be it family members, friends or colleagues. Conflict is inevitable in our courses of life and each of these conflicts redefines our relationships with these people and our own personality.

The way we approach the conflict determines our future relationships with these people. If we do not handle it well, hostility and resentment towards each other arise. If we handled it well, we gain greater trust and deepen our relationships

I have a conflict with a friend over a long period of time and there were different stages on how I tackled it.

I have a childhood friend who I am very close to during my primary school days up till now. I know her personalities very well and we do share our woes and foes together. However, one problem of her is being too dominating. She wanted everyone to go along with her. During secondary school days, my friends and I accommodated her and did not bring the issue up. I choose to remain silent as I was scared that if I discussed the issue with her openly, given her ego, our relationships would deteriorate further. She was my best friend and I wanted it to remain as how it should be.

As I grew up, I know ignoring the problem could not solve the problem. I started to face the issue and try dropping hints to her. She ignored it and continued to do it in her way.

Over the years, I started to accept her personality and assume nothing had happened before. We are still friends till today however the problem still remains as a thorn between our relationships. Perhaps a lot of things had left unsaid and we were both unclear of what we should do. 

picture from: http://forbescomm2110.blogspot.com/2011/03/chapter-12-interpersonal-conflict-and.html

I am clear that currently we are both at the stage of avoiding the problem. I do know we should work and discuss to solve the problems to achieved the win-win situation. However this is easier said than done in most cases. So the question is how do I achieved this win-win situation without her resenting my opinions and  cause a deterioration in our relationships?     

Effective communication skills are important!

Humans communicate with each other through written words, spoken languages and body languages. From the first two lessons of ES2007s, I came to realisation that communications between individuals are much more complicated and messages may not necessary being put across to another person like how we intended to. Personally, I had encountered a communication breakdown during my internship last vacation and I ought say it was an unpleasant experience.

I was at an small-medium enterprise interning and my task for that period was to help my company with a project with our client at another marketing company. I had to go over to work at our client's company for ad-hoc tasks given by our client on a daily basis. The project manager was actually in the team for only a few months and all communications between my client and colleagues had to start from scratch. Communication between my colleagues and clients was mostly through phone or emails.  Miscommunications arose as a lot of things required face-to-face clarifications and I was the person sandwiched between them. I tried to clarify things with them, however, being an intern, our client seems not to trust me in a lot of things.

While I was reflecting on it, I realised to build a good rapport with our client, we need to be confident when we communicate. Communication is mutual, both parties are required to respect each other and should find means to gain each other trust in order for a communication to work out.  Listening is part of the building block of good communication. There was an Argentine proverb that goes "Who spreads, sows; Who listens, reaps." Listening was actually a way to show our respect and more important to prevent miscommunications.

Choosing the correct form of communication channels is also important. Given today's technology, people tend to choose emails and phone as a form of communication. However, I think meeting face-to-face to elucidate confusions is sometimes more effective and we should not abandon this form of communication for convenience.

The way we communicate determines the quality of our lives.With effective communication skills, I believed work can be done less erroneously and more productively. As a result, frustrations and unhappiness in work place can also be reduced. I believed every good leader begins with the ability to communicate effectively with his team mates and hence I chose this module this semester hoping to gain all the essential skills of communication and that I can put into good use in my workplace in the near future.