Critical reflection on learning points in the course

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.