Reflection Blog post 4

Looking back at my reflection, I realized that I did not know how much I had to learn to enjoy presentation or speeches. My problem was not being able to enjoy doing presentation or probably speeches as well. However, I was glad that I was able to exercise some audience interaction during the presentation. Throughout this course, I managed to pick learning what is necessary and essential for a good presentation using non-verbal cues to hint or humor the audience.

I did not somewhat improve in my presentation skills but I managed to pick up learning what I like and do not like doing in a presentation. I think I am missing a positive attitude and I felt like I am doing for the sake of making a good presentation. I must have subconsciously felt that way for some vivid reason. But I am glad to find out about this during the course.

My teamwork skills also needed to be polished as I felt like I had contributed less in the work. I should learn to take things seriously and I should not have any doubt for my team even though it was just two of my team members in my group with me. I believed that I should be more open with ideas to assist and communicate with them more frequently.

Overall, I think this course is quite an eye opener for me as I did not see things clearly till now. I hope to take this experience and remind me to prepare carefully for any presentation or speeches in the future.

Blog post conflict #3

I formed a group of four students during Singapore Polytechnic for an innovation project. After we were briefed on the objective of the project task, I noticed how my other two group members, Gary and Evan were not well acquainted with each other. As we started proposing an idea for our main objective of our project, they both unexpectedly opposed each other as Evan thought that Gary's idea was not appealing enough while Gary did not take Evan's comment nicely. Thus, they had become uncooperative and a tension formed between them.

During our discussion, Evan shared his idea on how we should do the presentation and what item we should use for the innovation project. Whenever Gary offered a suggestion, I noticed Evan interrupted him most of the time. I told Evan to let him talk but in the end, Gary’s ideas were rejected by Evan without any further discussion. Gary became so frustrated that he refused to speak to Evan. While listening to Evan speaking, Gary fell silent and his arms were folded while he gave Evan an unpleasant look at him and began murmuring to himself quietly. I was not sure if he was paying attention. His display of non-verbal cues involved staring at the ceiling or looking down at his phone whenever Evan was talking.

As our end of our discussion came to an agreement, Gary was too furious to say anything and just could not care about Evan taking charge. He simply nodded without speaking Evan and refused to make eye contact with him. Evan felt insulted by this gesture. Eventually, Evan asked him in a straight forward manner and in a harsh tone to what Gary wanted to say but this made Gary feel like he was being attacked verbally by Evan. Evan clearly didn’t want Gary as a part of a team. As our team disbanded, I spoke to Evan telling him that he initially started the ruckus conversation between them and brought up the fact that we had to work as a whole team if we were to succeed.

Finally, Evan admitted to his mistakes to Gary and then they both apologized for any misunderstanding they had done. However, Gary would revert to becoming silent and the rest of us would not know how to react again in the same situation. Gary began to participate less in the discussion and Evan did not bother asking him to do so.

What could have Gary and Evan done to avoid this conflict?

Blog post 2(revised 3)

In my first year in Singapore Polytechnic, I had noticed the changes of how the students and teachers communicated in lecture halls and classrooms. I observed that some students can intently interact with the lecturer with questions and remarks as they take these lessons seriously in class. As the lecturer goes through the lessons in class, the students would listen and take down notes to understand the information given. However, in a lecture hall that can fill up to fifty students, some students chose to freely bring out their handphones or laptops to do away with their own entertainments in front of the lecturer. The lecturer would not show any concern or dismiss any of their actions as he had to carry on the lesson for the other students who are willing to learn. It is as though the lecturers and students behavior differ in different environments. This could be a culture of how teenagers act depending on the supervision of the lecturer. I could be that some needed to be watched or alerted by the lecturer to pay attention to the lessons.

As the lessons went by, I noticed how every girl in the lecture hall and classroom were very smart and organized with writing down their own study notes in response to lessons while some of the males can basically rely on the books or notes provided by the lecturer or they don’t refer to any studying materials but listen. People say that females are smarter than males as they perform better in their studies. This might not be true as some males were sometimes smarter than the females and could achieve better results without using any studying methods. Perhaps, it was because the females showed more hard work than the males in class that made us misunderstood how capable females. There is no difference on males and females performing seriously in their studies

There were also group projects my class had to attend and my group involved different students from other courses. We had to engage in group discussions after we were given an objective. One of my group members who was older than us seemed to be very lazy as my group talked. He would start to look down on his handphone during a group discussion and sometimes he slept as the discussion went by. We tried talking to him but he folded his arms in front of him defensively and shook his legs nervously whenever we asked him to help us. Even though he was older, he should learn to respect the group discussion as it would be bad if we started to judge him badly for his actions. Regardless of our difference in age, he should not be carefree about in the group and he should not expect us to tolerate his behavior. As he was the oldest, he should be acting more responsible and disciplined. 

Reflection Blog post 1

I feel that the use of communication allows me to get to know the person better or the audience during a speech. I believe that listening and talking helps me to gain more learning experience and this form of communication pushes me forward to become enthusiastic and fluent with my speeches and conversation. It can also help me reflect on my tone and my stance as they express deeply on how I feel towards the receiver or audience.

I am sometimes troubled on how I should go with the flow of my speeches and my direct eye contact towards the audience. I seem to be okay talking one to one with someone but I am not very good at speaking clearly to a group of people as I became very nervous during a speech or presentation. I use reference materials such as presentation speech written cards so that I will not accidentally adlib my speech.

I want to be able to speak freely, positively and persuasively to the audience so that I can get my message of my presentation through with confidence. A direct communicative speech can be improved by learning more presentation and speech skills. I hope that I will be able to explain my presentation and understand more of the audience properly as a presenter must know who he is showing and telling to.

Understanding the audience or the other person in conversation may be very crucial to hone my communication skills. It is better to have both the parties, the speaker and audience to communicate with one another to create a strong atmosphere of connection of the topic presentation. I hope that this course will help me to overcome the difficulties of presentation and speech so that I can improve on making a proper oral presentative communication with everyone.

Communication paragraph

Communication is essential to not just an individual but to everyone in the society around the world.

It is important to exercise every form of communication to the audience you are presenting such as presentative body language, tone and stance. It helps me to get to know about something or someone through speech or conversation to practice these aspects of communication.

The course will help me to look forward communicating efficiently and effectively towards the readers or audience.

In this course, I hope to become interactive with my group members and actively present our roles properly. I believe I will be able make improvements in my presentation skills along with my team members that would give a communicative gesture to the audience.