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 (:
Hi Huiting!
ReplyDeleteI myself came from a Chinese-speaking family as well but I have never considered it as a disadvantage. On the contrary, it has helped me to become effectively bilingual although I must admit that my proficiency in the Chinese language has dwindle over the years despite me coming from Chinese background schools like CCHSM and NYJC. As for oral presentations, a trick I've learnt is to be confident in yourself and look at someone who is far away from you. It'll seem like you are giving eye-contact when you are actually not. ( You can try it for the coming OP)
Anyway, taking a step out of our comfort zone is never easy and I think all of us feels the same way. As the saying goes " We'll never know until we try". I'm sure all of us will ace this module at the end of 13 weeks ;) Hope to work with you soon!
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ReplyDeleteHi Hui Ting,
ReplyDeleteYour post is actually very insightful, indeed. As a chemistry student, I know that I, you and other people don't really master communication skills as other students from Arts or Biz because we spend most of the time reading books, journals and doing experiments.
Like you, I admire the people who do public speaking as well. I actually took part in NUS Toastmaster club last year but no longer be there now, btw :">
I realize my disadvantage in communicating, that's why I choose this module and I think you also have the same reason as me. Let's try together with our classmate to make this module beneficial to everyone.
Cheers :D
HELLO HUITING :)
ReplyDeleteMy concerns are actually quite similar to yours and I feel that 99.999% of your post reflects all my thoughts!
As opposed to Terence and similar to you, I feel that I had little exposure to English thus far because I was also from a chinese speaking family and my friends in school is chinese speaking as well. Almost 80% of the life is spent on "Channel 8" (Chinese, chinese & chinese!). It is definitely more comfortable for me to converse and listen in my mother language.
Knowing the root of my problem to poor command of English language, I TRY to converse in proper English to my peers (most of the time its still quite difficult to rule out singlish like lah lei lo). Besides that, I know that I need to find some time out of our busy curriculum to read some novels, watch more channel 5 and listen to English songs. But I must admit that it is still quite hard for me to catch what the actors are trying to say sometimes during movies, tv serials and most of the time I still relied on those chinese subtitles to get the whole picture :(.
Despite the fear for communicating in English, like you and many others, I strongly believe that we must step out of our comfort zone to expose ourself to the language, to learn. So let's KAMBATE!!!!!!!!!!!!
<3, Lisu
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ReplyDeleteHi Hui Ting,
ReplyDeleteYes the number one fear of all people is public speaking! There is no other way to overcome the fear and anxiety that results from it except by adequate exposure. Putting yourself in the mill is a good start!
At the same time, I have some advice for you regarding presentations. Depending on context, one needs to vary his/her tone and formality of speech. Take extra care to eliminate Singlish in your sentence structures. A good way to start is to watch sample presentations of professionals and observe how they carry themselves.
With that, all the best for this module!
Yong Qiang
Hello Huiting!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that public speaking is an essential skill that all of us should possess. However, no one on Earth is born with the inherent ability to speak confidently in front of a large crowd. Practice is the key to success.
I always associate words like 'fear' and 'intimidating' whenever I am asked to present my thoughts and ideas to the class. (And I still do!) But I hope that through this module, we can overcome the limits we set for ourselves and gain a deeper understanding of what we call 'effective communication'.
All the way! (:
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ReplyDeleteHi Hui Ting,
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I would strongly agree with you when you say that both verbal and non-verbal forms of communication are equally important. There are many people who just emphasize on the verbal aspect of effective communication and miss out on the non-verbal aspect, which can actually be a powerful tool for expressing our ideas, opinions, and feelings to the outside world.
As for your English conversational skills, I believe most of us come from non-English speaking families. Hence, most of us have the same problem as you do. We get nervous while talking to a crowd, may it be a class or a group of people while public speaking.
What I have realized is that this is a skill any of us can master, if we practice. This is in fact the secret to effective communication. There is no use of reading a lot of articles on effective communication, if we do not practice it in real life, since practical learning is the best form of learning.
Once that we have realized what our weaknesses are, and are ready to work on improving them, I believe we can surely master effective communication. I am sure this module will be an eye-opener for us, and will help us groom our communication skills, taking the best out of us.
Thank you.
Akash
Hello Hui Ting,
ReplyDeleteWell, it seems everyone have elaborated a lot on the importance the importance of effective communication already, so I won't repeat that. For me, all that talk about how important communication is will go down the drain if we don't dare to take the first step to improve it. And I am sure you are on your way of improvement right now, by taking ES2007S and engage in various activity in the class.
Just to share some thoughts, I am not the type that like talking in front of a lot of people also, but during my junior high school, I was forced to do a lot of presentation, firstly by preparing the slides, the script, then speaking in places when our teacher asked us tricky question... Back then I used to write down everything I need to say, and freaked out every time I forgot it. But overtime, as the number of presentation gradually increase, I started to speak better, slowly bit by bit. That's why when you talk about having to read the script this morning, I strongly believe that you can speak without it in the near future.
We just need to work hard to compensate, I guess. Hope to see talk with confidence in the future.
Cheers,
Mark
Thank you for sharing with us the journey that led you to ES2007S, Hui Ting.
ReplyDeleteYou've generated a very good number of responses, and that is a good indication that what you've shared have strike a chord with your readers.
I'm glad you'd taken that first step out of your comfort zone to work on refining your communication skills. What you take away from this module really depends to a large extent your input, and the questions you seek, and of course, you can be sure that I am with you all the way.
Great effort, Hui Ting. I look forward to reading your next blog post!