Blog post 4

          Hello everyone, funny how fast time flies and we have reached the end of the course. It felt like it was just a week ago when I was tasked with writing a blog for this course. The time has come for me to verify if I managed to accomplish the 2 goals that I have set for myself at the start of this course. The 2 goals are improving my self-awareness and communication skills.

For my first goal of improving my self-awareness, I am glad to update that I have made good progress. I can understand myself better now as compared to me at the beginning of the semester. I accomplished this by setting aside 5 minutes to reflect on the day before going to bed. I would start by asking myself questions like "Is there any point of time in the day that I may have mismanaged my emotions?" and "Is there a source as to why I am feeling this way?". These two questions effectively helped me understand myself. I realized how my mood may affect how I communicate with my peers and when I let my emotions get the better of me. This way I will know what triggers such responses and I can plan for a situation similar to this.
For my second goal which is improving my communication skill, I am sad to say that I did not manage to improve communication skill. I still belong to the group of listening just to reply and the only improvement I had made is by holding back some of my comments. By doing this, I can understand what they have to say before interjecting with my comments.
I want to end off this blog post by listing down what I would do to further enhance my interpersonal and work communication skills. I hope to further improve my communication skills by putting in more effort to pay attention and let the other person talk without interrupting him. I also intend to reduce my talking speed so that I can speak more clearly and to process my thoughts.  I also aim to have some time set aside each day to practice my communication skills so that I do not stutter when I speak. I want to improve my self-awareness in terms of the signs and signals of body language so that I can more easily understand and communicate effectively with them.

Bonus Blog Post

Bonus Blog Post: Reflection on shooting 

Hi! For this blog post, I will be talking about some challenges faced during the making of the presentation video. The challenges faced are "Limited shooting time due to conflicting schedule ", "missing storyboard" and the "Video making expertises". 

Due to our pack schedule of SEEMS, we are seldom all free to work on the shooting of the video. But thanks to Marcus who took the time to plan the shooting schedule by compiling all our free time that we are able to do the shooting together. For the missing storyboard, it happened when we lost the storyboard and when all of us can't find it, Ernest decided to step up and redo the whole thing. Thanks to Ernest we are able to submit the storyboard on time. Another person I need to highlight is Teck Cheng. Our group is very lucky to have Teck Cheng in our team due to his video making expertise, without his video camera, tripod, and video production skills. We will have to face a lot of trouble in the production of the video as no one else in the team knows about video making. 

English Assignment: BLOG POST 3

Hello readers! Today I am going to blog about an interpersonal conflict. Conflict arises whether we like it or not, the key lies in your attitude and how you manage it. When handled properly, conflict can be positive. It leads to a deeper understanding and mutual respect. When handled poorly, it can cause resentment and hostility. Let me tell you a story about 2 brothers involved in a conflict.

Ted and Ben were given a pair of movie vouchers by their mother for good behaviour. However, when they arrived at the cinema. They were told that the voucher can only be used in the same movie. This causes a problem as they both planned to watch a different movie. This resulted in conflict as the brothers have to watch a movie together and one of them won't get to watch the movie he wants.

Ted decided to assert his position as the elder brother to force Ben into watching the movie he preferred. Ben felt resentful as Ted forced a solution on him without any discussion. Ted is unwilling to cooperate as he has been longing to watch the movie since the trailer first came out online. This led to a negotiation deadlock as both parties assertive and uncooperative as their concerns are compromised.

Realising that things aren't getting anywhere, he decides to compromise and collaborate with Ben to think about an alternative solution. Seeing that Ted is willing to lower his needs, Ben decided to comply and together, they proceed to seek innovative solutions to satisfy their needs. 

After spending close to half an hour weighing the pros and cons, they decided to watch the movie that Ben wanted. As it is an action flick, both of them realised they will benefit more from watching this movie in the cinema. They won't be able to replicate the intensity of the crashing buildings and explosions out of the cinema. Since Ted wanted to watch an animated movie that does not have any explosive scenes, they will then wait for the blue-ray release of the movie. Furthermore, they might not have to fork out extra money if both of them can convince their parents to purchase it. After the decision has been made, Ben realised he got the better deal and made the move to pay for the drinks and popcorn.

So, I have come to the end of the 2 brothers story. What do you think of the solution used? Do you feel that collaboration is the correct solution to this problem? Feel free to use the model of conflict-handling behaviour as a guide to input your own solution in the comments section if you have got a better one! I will read through them and discuss it with you when I have the time. 

Blog Post 2

Active listening and/or Non-verbal communication 

Observe the interaction between 2 or more people

In this blog post, I will talk about how people interaction may be affected by culture, gender or age.I still remember about the time when I traveled to Paris for my year-end vacation and an incident happened at Charles De Gaulle Airport. I witnessed this group of mainland china tourists. They were loud and could be heard clearly in the midst of this busy airport. One of tourist pointed out to the exit sign and shouted "那个"(ni ge).  The word held a very similar pronunciation to the English word “nigger”.However, in the vicinity, there was an African American man waiting for his baggage. On hearing the word he felt offended and proceeds to scold and make rude gestures to the group of the Chinese tourists. Confusion among the Chinese tourists arose. The eldest man among the group joins for a verbal argument with the American. I remember the Chinese man rebuke the American man by saying "In my country, people treat the elderly with respect unlike you!"

Let me pause the story here and explain their lack of active listening and non-verbal skills. Culture barrier may have played a part in this chaotic situation. As the elderly Chinese man was blocked by his culture of younger generation treating their elderly with respect, his is blinded to make any good judgment. The American man fails to clarify his doubts with someone, which is part of active listening and proceeds for an argument. The American man also made rude gestures to Chinese group as his non-verbal skills to further display his unhappiness which is a good use of non-verbal skills but for reasons. 

Resuming the story. A Malay lady managed to break off the argument. She explained about the misunderstanding in their respective languages. Even though her spoken Chinese were choppy she managed to diffuse the situation. The situation ended with both parties apologizing to each other. It only reading the news about this incident that I realize the lady was from Singapore! Now we will analyze how she manages to resolve the situation taking the fact her knowledge of the Chinese language was poor. The main reason is because that she has the good cross-cultural understanding which helps out during the explaining. She used hand gestures, pointing at the exit sign and explaining the meaning of "那个" and how it offended the American man. From this, we can recognize lady is using her nonverbal skill to further complement her explanation. 

Blog Post 0 : End goals for the course

Blog post 1

Importance of developing effective communication skills and 2 goals 

Hi, I will first start off with that effective communication is one of the most basic factors to succeed in the many aspects of life. As we require communication skill to better understand what your friends and families are trying to say instead of listening to reply. You should play close attention to the speaker and change for any change in tone or their body languages and take a moment to think about how you are going to reply. That is effective communication when done well. 

As for the 2 goals that I set for myself to accomplish at the end of the course, my first goal is to improvement my self-awareness so that I will not cause anyone trouble unknowingly. My second goal is to improve my communication skills as I belong to the group that listened just to reply. Moreover, I do not give much thought when replying which in turn, inflicting stress and pain to others. Therefore these 2  goals need to be achieved by the end of the course in order for me to be a better communication and a decent human being. 

Blog Post 1

BLOG POST 2 

Hi, today I am going to blog about my strengths and weakness when communicating with others. I have recognized one of my greatest strengths in communication is my large Open Area, based on the Johari Window. I am approachable, friendly and this allows me to bond with my group mates easily. My group mates, in turn, decided to have an open and honest communication where everyone is aware that the comments and feedback are subjective. 

As time passes, I find that we are more productive, cooperative and efficient. While I might be blind to my own strengths and weaknesses. But as a group, we managed to utilize the strengths of each individual to support those weaknesses. Done well, the process of giving and taking, sharing, and open communication builds trust within the group.

Challenges I faced when communicating with others is when I get intimidated by the physical size of people bigger than me. For the physical factors, I find it hard not to be intimidated by the size of the person I am currently talking to due to my childhood trauma of being pick on by my larger sized classmates. Since then, whenever I happened to meet a person that is bigger sized than me I will always be on my guard by making myself unapproachable through not making eye contact when talking and reducing the size of my Open Area by being difficult to talk to and closed off. This way I may be seen as uncommunicative and untrustworthy and hopefully, they will not continue talking to me. 

I have also received feedback about that I lacked self-awareness. The example given was due to my slow eating speed, most of my mates have already finished their food and were waiting for me. But I was oblivious to it as I was using my phone. Another good example that was given to me was that I always make bad jokes even during a serious situation. Therefore, for the two objectives that I need to set for myself will be to improve my self-awareness and kick the bad habit of closing myself off to people bigger than me.