Assignement_1
Personally, I feel that communication is necessary in our
everyday lives, for without it we would be living in a world in which two of
our basic five senses are under-utilised, namely sight and hearing.
Now you may be wondering how is sight relevant to
communication, and this brings me to one of my strengths in communication,
which is in non-verbal communication. Non-verbal communication is further
categorized in many forms, such as posture, gestures, body language and my
forte facial expression. With facial expression I can get my message across
more fluently, by reading the other party’s facial expression whom I’m trying
to communicate, I’m able to adjust the intensity of our conversation, by signs
such as getting confused to getting more engrossed. Furthermore, other than
adjusting the intensity, I’m also able to shift the topic of the discussion if
needed, for it may seem too insensitive to breach on specific issues, the other
party gets more reserved and may even frown.
About being more reserved, I face such challenges myself,
for I find it difficult to communicate to unfamiliar faces. When encountered
with an unfamiliar person, I usually tend to limit the length of my sentences
and even limit the time we spent talking altogether. The reason I limit the
duration is to prevent myself from being judged by the other party and to also
judge the character of the person before revealing more about myself. I also
feel uncomfortable when asked present to a large crowd, for I would be unable
to accommodate everybody’s interest and may even panic due to stage fright.
Another issue I face is that I’m not a good listener in topics I’m not
interested in, and I expect the other party to have the same facial perception
I have, for I tend to shift my attention elsewhere and my facial expression
would display it.
Regarding such struggles I face in talking to a large crowd,
I target to be able to resolve this by the end of this course to be able to use
the public presentation to aid me in my future hurdles to come. I also plan to
be an active listener, so that ill be able to value others opinion which would
result in greater teamwork.
COMMENTED ON:
John Yio : johnyio.blogspot.com
Andy; spicy150.wordpress.com
Yee Tong : yeetongcom150.blogspot.com
Kailer: kailersem1902.blogspot.com
Hi Josiah,
ReplyDeleteYee Tong here. Interesting post about your strengths and weaknesses in communication! I think it fits the criteria of the assignment as you had answered all of the questions for the assignment as required. I can tell that from your post that you are focusing more in the aspect of interpersonal skills since you mention about being reserved when speaking to strangers and understanding non-verbal communication. I agreed on your strengths as knowing you; I find that you like to express your feelings through non-verbal actions such as using hand gesture when talking. However, I am afraid I have to disagree with one of your challenges that are having stage fright when facing a large crowd. I find it somewhat normal as we all majored in engineering and having to present yourself with a large group is quite rare. I think that being nervous to a large crowd is not a very bad thing because I believe I have it too. I believe that through some training, you can be better at it. Overall, I think that you can achieve what you set in your objectives such as being an active listener.
Good luck!
Hi Josiah,
ReplyDeletethis has been a very interesting read on how all five senses (except perhaps taste, because that would be creepy) come together in unison under the umbrella of communication. I found it quite an entertaining example that you said the intensity of any given conversation could be raised or lowered by nothing but facial expression alone - that is something that, upon recollection, is actually a very observable and common phenomenon. Memories of group meetings whereby the rambling teammate's senseless non-contributory rants about the group project, or the unhelpful platoon-mate who has nothing but curse-words and substance-less derision about military service are brought to a halt by naught but raised eyebrows.
Regarding your personal challenge on unfamiliar faces, I believe that to a certain extent everybody faces such problems, including myself. You might find it helpful to sit back for a while, taking in information - what do they like? What did they do recently? What puts them off? With a compiled mental list of information, you can finally approach the person. Talk about something they seemed to talk about with more vigor. Talk about what they said they did a few minutes ago. The possibilities are endless, and truly, it is a joy to see the gap (which is more than a metaphorical one, considering that you mentioned in your presentation that physical distance between two communicative parties is indicative of their comfort with each other) between you and them lessen with time and effort.
My encouragement to you is this: that I think with more practice, you would most definitely be able to overcome that initial "awkward bump", as I like to call it. After all, it takes two hands to clap; a completely new face would most probably be equally as afraid of what you think of them as you are. Remember this always: vulnerability is the key for building friendships!
Best of luck, Josiah!