Critical Reflection on Effective Communication
English has always been my weakest module and I always had difficulties in relay my message without sounding offensive. The reason was due to my family influence as I was brought up in a family whereby English is very alien in my family as we depend mainly on Hokkien and Singlish to communicate with each other.
At the beginning of Effective Communication module, I was told to write an introduction about myself to elaborate on my strength and weakness in terms of communication, and the aspects that I want to achieve throughout this module. The areas that I wanted to improve on were my reading and writing as it is my greatest weakness and as a future engineer, I need the skills to communicate very specific information to others effectively.
The first task given to me was to write a reader’s response to the topic of Cladding. Initially, I had a lot of trouble understanding how to craft good sentences while not being able to notice my grammar mistakes that I had always been making throughout my writing. On top of that, I had to read multiple articles on cladding in which creates a lot of strain on my command of English. With a little perseverance and dedication was all it takes to start improving myself gradually. Upon receiving my comments, I learned that I was not able to pinpoint my argument critically and required more refining in terms of reading and writing. Nonetheless, I was happy to see myself improve steadily with more confidences in writing.
Following up on the task was the technical report, whereby the class was grouped into different sub-teams and had to innovate a solution to resolve practical daily problem. It was one of the best opportunity as I was able to learn and observe my teammates’ individual work style and cognitive thinking. The main struggle was writing the report as every sentence must be formal and professional while being able to converse the main specification across to readers. In overall, my team’s technical report still lacks concrete details in explanation and elaborate on our concept. In my future technical reports, I will be more precise in writing and specific in explaining the flow of the concept.
The Oral presentation was part of the requirement for the technical report as my team was required to present our proposed solution. During the presentation, I got tensed up when I was too focused on micro-focused on myself that I neglected my audiences which I might come off slightly more authoritative to the audiences. At the same time, I was not able to transit to the next presenter effectively. In my future presentation, I will be more cautious of my transitional words and also remember to enjoy the process of giving a presentation to the audience.
To conclude my entire learning journey in Effective Communication Module, it has brought me a lot of challenges and many times I had to unlearn and relearn my understanding of structuring sentences. After all the adversity I had gone through in this module, I had seen myself grew to become a better writer and reader. This module has helped me to realized that I still have the potential in becoming an effective communicator.
SIE2016 Effective Communications, instructed by Professor Blackstone, is definitely the most enriching skills and it has transformed me into becoming a writer and presenter but there is still room for improvement. Ultimately, I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your guidance. Thank you.
At the beginning of Effective Communication module, I was told to write an introduction about myself to elaborate on my strength and weakness in terms of communication, and the aspects that I want to achieve throughout this module. The areas that I wanted to improve on were my reading and writing as it is my greatest weakness and as a future engineer, I need the skills to communicate very specific information to others effectively.
The first task given to me was to write a reader’s response to the topic of Cladding. Initially, I had a lot of trouble understanding how to craft good sentences while not being able to notice my grammar mistakes that I had always been making throughout my writing. On top of that, I had to read multiple articles on cladding in which creates a lot of strain on my command of English. With a little perseverance and dedication was all it takes to start improving myself gradually. Upon receiving my comments, I learned that I was not able to pinpoint my argument critically and required more refining in terms of reading and writing. Nonetheless, I was happy to see myself improve steadily with more confidences in writing.
Following up on the task was the technical report, whereby the class was grouped into different sub-teams and had to innovate a solution to resolve practical daily problem. It was one of the best opportunity as I was able to learn and observe my teammates’ individual work style and cognitive thinking. The main struggle was writing the report as every sentence must be formal and professional while being able to converse the main specification across to readers. In overall, my team’s technical report still lacks concrete details in explanation and elaborate on our concept. In my future technical reports, I will be more precise in writing and specific in explaining the flow of the concept.
The Oral presentation was part of the requirement for the technical report as my team was required to present our proposed solution. During the presentation, I got tensed up when I was too focused on micro-focused on myself that I neglected my audiences which I might come off slightly more authoritative to the audiences. At the same time, I was not able to transit to the next presenter effectively. In my future presentation, I will be more cautious of my transitional words and also remember to enjoy the process of giving a presentation to the audience.
To conclude my entire learning journey in Effective Communication Module, it has brought me a lot of challenges and many times I had to unlearn and relearn my understanding of structuring sentences. After all the adversity I had gone through in this module, I had seen myself grew to become a better writer and reader. This module has helped me to realized that I still have the potential in becoming an effective communicator.
SIE2016 Effective Communications, instructed by Professor Blackstone, is definitely the most enriching skills and it has transformed me into becoming a writer and presenter but there is still room for improvement. Ultimately, I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your guidance. Thank you.
Thank s very much, Lewis, for this highly detailed, clearly focused reflection. You do a very good job reviewing the key tasks in the module as they relate to your initial objectives for the module, and you express how you felt about doing those tasks. Of course, the essence of a critical reflection in contrast to a descriptive one, as I had mentioned earlier, is that one reacts to the events/tasks explained. You do that very well and you give an accompanying explanation of how you will move forward in the future. Excellent effort!
ReplyDeleteI also appreciate your strong contributions to prepping for the showcase and being the emcee. That was an extra effort that was way beyond the call of duty.
So I need to express my thanks for all your hard work this term. Of course, everyone can improve their comm skills, even old fellows like myself. It is a lifelong commitment.
Best wishes as you continue your learning journey!
I would like to apologize for the late reply as i was preparing for my examination and today was my final paper.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for Brad for your kind words and comment. After the showcase and emcee, I noticed that i had much to learn and currently, I still practicing on how to draft a good report.
Thank you Brad.