Communication may seem very simple and straightforward to many but however to do it effectively is definitely a different thing. There are countless things to consider, like the tone used, your body language and the choice of words used among the long list. I have realized the greater significance of this skill as I advance to the later stages of my life, where interaction with people becomes more formal and necessary at times. Apart from conveying the message across to the other party, we have to create the desired image that we want to portray.
I do enjoy very much interacting with people, the process of developing a rapport with someone is indeed very satisfying. While I enjoy doing so, I must admit that I am not totally comfortable doing it. Having keen interest in business studies, I have taken a couple of business modules over the semesters where their interactive teaching style was definitely not something I am familiar with, as compared to my core modules where all the speaking was done by the lecturer. It was during the business classes where I experienced frowns and uninterested behaviour from the audience of my presentations that I realized my impoverished communication skills had to be polished.
I have also realized that knowing the elements to be an effective communicator is not sufficient, it must be coupled with a lot of practice. This explains my desire to study this module where I believe I can enrich my communication skills with the good mix of theory and practical lessons that will be exposed to us.
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Wow! The reaction of your prewsentation audiences sounds scary. I hope we can broaden your presentation toolbox this term!
ReplyDeleteThis is a good post, highlighting your specific communication needs.
Thanks!
Hi Terence,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that communication needs the factors such as tone, body language, choice of words as you mentioned. I think that to be a good speaker, one needs to choose and use these factors appropriately according to situation.
It is true that it is not easy to communicate effectively especially in important presentations and formal occasions when one tends to make mistakes due to either inexperience or nervousness.
I agree with you about having to consider many factors when we communicate and i feel that as we grow older,we become more aware of the need for these effective communication skills in the various situations that we encounter and the consequences of the lack of them. One of the reasons may be due to us becoming more self-conscious as we grow up. We become concerned about what others think about what we say and their impression of us. Another one would be that the reasons for our interaction become more varied. For me, some examples of "necessary and formal" situations would be confrontations due to interpersonal conflicts, job interviews, and group discussions. These situations, which we will face only when we grow up, require effective communication skills to handle.
ReplyDeleteDear Sir,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments and I am looking forward to the valuable lessons that will be taught to us. Regarding the reaction of my presentation audience, its more demoralising than scary. Anyway that was my first experience, fortunately things got better with more practice.
Hi Min Khine,
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with you that inexperience and nervousness are reasons for a bad presentation. Practice however can eliminate these flaws, the phrase "practice makes perfect" reflects so evidently in this context.
Hi Terence,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that some business modules are very different from Faculty of Science. Somehow I feel that students from Business School are more capable in communicating with people. Maybe that is why they have a higher expectation for you in the presentation. However, I totally agree that "practice makes perfect" and we all should practice a lot before every presentation we made.
Hi Grace,
ReplyDeleteYes Grace agree very much with you. On the part when you say we are becoming more conscious of people's impression of us, we are not only more conscious but conscious for more reasons. For example, its more than vanity and appearance now, we want to appear competent, reliable, etc. for the different situations we are facing.
Hello.
ReplyDeleteI am glad to hear that you have taken some business module and accumulate some presentation skills. Hopefully that skill will be useful for your "Green" project. For me, I hardly had any presentation chances for all the modules (mainly life-science and geography) that i took in NUS. Most of them usually include a project that don't require any formal presentation. Thus, i took this module to brush up on presentation skills.
I feel that you have point out a interesting advantage of communication - Enjoyment of interaction. I can totally empathize with you. I really appreciate the joy of communication when i am travelling alone last semester. It is a great feeling meeting with people from other nationality and realizing that we have some much topics to talk about.