Through this course, I have learned and improved in many areas with regards to interpersonal communication.
Firstly, I learned that I need to know about myself and others. This knowledge helps me identify my weaknesses, enabling me to overcome and improve my communication with others. With the knowledge of self, I am able to plan about how I should respond internally when different situations arise so that I will react positively when I am placed in such a situation. With the knowledge of others, I am able to narrow down the strategies to use in order to attain the best outcome.
Secondly, I learned that I need to speak and listen with my mind and body. The impact of non-verbal communication is something that had not spoke very strongly to me before. I was not able to see the importance of non-verbal communication till I learned about how body language affects the other party and how he or she interprets my intent or attitude through the instinctive visual cues I exhibit. This made me conscious about how I am behaving when I am communicating to people and I do need to work on my non-verbal communication. This is due to the fact that I am listening but tend to show through my body language that I am not or I have no interest in the topic the speaker is sharing with me. However, with this awareness, I am now able to improve in the area of non-verbal communication.
Thirdly, I learned that there are a number of ways when handling conflict and it varies for each individual. I personally lean towards avoiding and accommodating and learned that these approaches are not viable for every kind of situation. There are times where I am required to be competing in order to achieve the required results and there are times where I have to be compromising so that progress can be made. Knowing this helps me in interacting with groups and leads to higher possibilities of a positive outcome.
Lastly, I improved in the area of presentation. The mock presentation greatly helped me as my faults were pointed out and I was able to work on it. My presentation skills still require loads of work but I believe that I improved compared to my previous presentations. I am able to make eye contact with the audience and maintain my composure better. However, I need to work on my tone and pronunciation as these areas show no improvement.
Overall, there are many points that I have learned through this course. There are many areas that I need to work on in the future and this course is only the first step towards being able to have good interpersonal communication skills.
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Critical Reflection on Project Learning
In this project, there are many areas that I learned from and one of them is the presentation. I always had stage fright and was never good at presenting in front of a group of people.
Whenever I stand in front of people, I become nervous and lose my train of thought. I am unable to make eye contact as it would intensify my nervousness and causes my mind to go blank. There will be the urge to hold onto something and I mostly end up grabbing my own hands. My voice is normally monotone and adding to that, being nervous causes me to mumble, stutter and slur when I speak.
Through the project presentations, I realized that I have improved in a couple of areas. I could make eye contact with the audience and I do not grab my hands when I am presenting. I experienced my mind going blank but was able to carry on with the presentation. However, my voice and pronunciation still requires improvement as I did not make any progress in that area.
This experience showed me that practice can negate the cons of nervousness during presentations. The mock presentation really helped for the actual presentation and I could work on the points that people advised me on. In fact, the advising session was also a learning experience for me as I am not good with people I am not close to and one of my advisers is someone I do not know on a personal level, making me quite nervous.
Interpersonal communication has been an interesting topic as it is normally not observed intentionally but by doing so, I learned to speak to people better and handle situations in a more beneficial manner. This experience reminded me that I have a lot to improve on for my presentation and to intentionally be aware of situations and the appropriate manner to respond with.
Whenever I stand in front of people, I become nervous and lose my train of thought. I am unable to make eye contact as it would intensify my nervousness and causes my mind to go blank. There will be the urge to hold onto something and I mostly end up grabbing my own hands. My voice is normally monotone and adding to that, being nervous causes me to mumble, stutter and slur when I speak.
Through the project presentations, I realized that I have improved in a couple of areas. I could make eye contact with the audience and I do not grab my hands when I am presenting. I experienced my mind going blank but was able to carry on with the presentation. However, my voice and pronunciation still requires improvement as I did not make any progress in that area.
This experience showed me that practice can negate the cons of nervousness during presentations. The mock presentation really helped for the actual presentation and I could work on the points that people advised me on. In fact, the advising session was also a learning experience for me as I am not good with people I am not close to and one of my advisers is someone I do not know on a personal level, making me quite nervous.
Interpersonal communication has been an interesting topic as it is normally not observed intentionally but by doing so, I learned to speak to people better and handle situations in a more beneficial manner. This experience reminded me that I have a lot to improve on for my presentation and to intentionally be aware of situations and the appropriate manner to respond with.
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