Time seems to pass by quickly and this is my last blog entry for this module. I have learnt many types of communication skills, but I will only elaborate on non verbal communication since I have never touched on this topic in my previous entries.

I learnt that non-verbal interaction is very important for me to enhance my ability to communicate effectively. We should practice active listening when others are presenting and take note of the non verbal signals we are emitting, such as eye contact, tone of voice, gesture, posture and body movements. During my last oral presentation, I tried to pay more attention to these details and perhaps this is why I did a better job as compared to my first presentation.

Because of this module, I had the opportunities to interact with everyone in this class. From the weekly class activities to peer teaching and lastly the final project, I have learnt to be polite, responsive and sensitive towards everyone’s feelings and to work as a team. My project mates and I have developed rapport during the process of working on the project, where we had to plan, prepare, research and finally come up with an original and practical proposal.

Lastly, one of the most useful things I have gained from this module is the 7Cs, (which is the Fundamentals of Written Communication, namely: Courtesy, Correctness, Conciseness, Clarity, Coherence/Cohesion, Concreteness and Completeness). We have learnt to put it into practical use in our application letter, bio-data, business correspondence for our projects as well as for our blogs entries and comments. It becomes a habit of mine now to always start off my comments in our classmates’ blogs in a courteous and positive tone and also to be clear in the messages that I want to bring across to them.

On a final note, I would like to thank everyone, especially my project group mates (Ariff and Pak Ming) and Ms Goh for being encouraging at all times. All the best to everyone for the final semester exams!

Cheers,
Huiyi

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“The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection”
Thomas Paine

This was my second formal presentation for this module and I am glad to say that I have made good progress as compared to my previous performance.

Overall, our group has put in much effort in preparing for this presentation and we even returned to school during the weekends for our rehearsal. However, I felt that we did not have sufficient preparation time due to the tight deadlines and if given more time, our group could have improved on our visuals used i.e. our powerpoint slides.

I was given the task of presenting our group’s survey findings. Since I was responsible for analysing the survey results previously, I had no problem understanding the content of the subject matter and I was confident of the message(s) to be communicated across to the audience. However, I was too nervous during the presentation, hence affecting the effectiveness of my delivery. My uneasiness was manifested by my jittery postures as well as language errors. The latter refers to mixing up common words such as “so” and “however” – errors that I would not have made in normal day speech.

Nevertheless, I cannot help but feel just “a little” sense of achievement upon hearing the following feedback:

1. I managed the speed and tone my presentation well.
2. I had greater eye contact and more audience awareness. This was in contrast with the first presentation, when I received comments about me being too reliant on the script.

Overall, I hope I can continue to hone my presentation skills and hopefully with more opportunities and exposure down the road, I would be able to gradually make progress from a frantic presenter to a confident speaker.


past: frantic presentor


future: confident speaker

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