The need for effective communication is imperative and it requires good skills to convey a message across successfully. For instance, for the exact same sentence of words, a different volume, intonation and body language give the receiver on the other end a total different feeling and interpretation. Hence, I strongly believe that both verbal and non-verbal are equally important when one is sending the message across.
Effective communication is especially important to me, as I foresee myself working in a service-oriented sector or a primary school teacher in the future as I enjoy the company of people. I like to interact with people and especially children as they give me different viewpoints of the way the situation can be viewed from. With a job that constantly revolves around people and human interactions, the crux of effective communication is essential.
Growing up in a Chinese-speaking family, I was not adequately exposed to English, both verbally and written. Back in junior college, we have a compulsory subject called project work where we are supposed to come up a proposal and eventually an oral presentation to 'sell' our ideas to our audience. I always admire my friends who were vocal and could speak really well on the spot without any script or reference material in hand during the oral presentation. In my mind, I always wonder how did they even do that? How could they speak so fluently in such a calm manner? Don’t they feel nervous in front of such a big crowd with all the stares focusing at them? Indeed, I believe these are the effective communication skills they possess and I have much to learn in this area.
I do fine in micro-manage on a one to one conversation but is never good in marco-manage whereby one needs to speak in front of a large crowd. Speaking up in front of a large crowd is never my forte. I feel the jittery, the adrenaline rush in the body and the butterflies in the stomach whenever I stand in front of a large class. As a result, I would fidget around and there would be redundant pauses, ermmm, ya, ahhaa, that come along as a combo set with my original presentation speech. At times, I do feel a little inferior during presentation or class participation due to my poor command of the English language :( Therefore, sometimes, this acted as a barrier to communication.
This time, I took a large step out of my comfort zone and would like to walk out of this barrier. As the saying goes, "It's never too late to learn"! I hope that through this 13weeks of intensive journey with everyone, I would able to pick up the necessary skills to overcome my fear of public speaking, get rid of all the bad presentation habits and be confident speaker!(:
Really looking forward to working with Ms Lim and everyone in class together as a team!:D The first week has passed and I must say I truly enjoyed myself in class and glad that I took up this challenge that I set for myself (:
