The end can also means a start

When I begin to write this post, I feel some pain in my heart. This blog post marks the end of this module. However, I think it is also the beginning of our way to enhance our soft skills. I heard of one saying that really describes my feeling: “When in retrospect, what you really value and feel happy is not the happiest time you experience, but the time when you put a lot of effort in and the time sometimes even makes you feel pains that you will remember and appreciate about”.

This module is actually an extra module for me and I do not need its 4MC. Some people might ask, why you give yourself some extra work to do? I think I choose the module because I think it is the time I need to enhance my soft skills.  During my four years study in the Faulty of Engineering, I feel there is no module designed to enhance my soft skills. There is no attention paid to the language usage and presentation skill even though we do have projects.  As English is my second language, I feel it remains an obstacle for me in every aspects of my life. Thus I decide to take the module and enhance my communication skills.

Though this semester I have some improvement in the following aspects:

1). Written Skill

I have to admit that my writing skill was quite bad at the beginning and even if I have some improvement, it is still far from a satisfactory level and I have a long way to go. I think the blogs contribute much to this improvement. It seems it is the first time I write in English to express feelings and thoughts. All the reports I have written before are technical and I have not paid attention to the language at all. It is until the blog post that I realize I feel some difficulty in expressing myself in English. I tried to alter the words and sentences to find the best way and I checked my post for language mistakes before posting.

2). Spoken language

I also have to admit my spoken language is far from good. For the projects and discussion I have in my engineering modules, I tend to group myself with my Chinese friends thus the language is purely Chinese. I choose this module because I know there is no one I knew and I force myself to speak more in English with classmates. I feel I have improvement a lot through this semester through chats and presentation. Especially for the preparation of peer teaching and final presentation, I force myself not to memorize it but to think and speak on the way.

3). Presentation Skill

Through learning, practicing and feedback, I think my presentation skill have improved a lot. By watching the video of Ken Robinson and Steve Jobs, I have some ideas of a good presentation. By watching the video of myself, I found weak points that I can never realize. The three steps cycle repeats for peer teaching and final presentation and I think it is really an effective way to improvement.

4). Team Work

I think Brad does an excellent job in grouping us, by which I mean we have different team members for different projects and we also sit in different groups during class. I think it is a good way to force us to meet and communicate with different classmates. Though working with different persons, I have learnt how teamwork and team building is important and how to communicate, negotiate when some problems arise.

5). Resume, Application Letter and Interview Skills

 While this may seem not so important to some of our classmates, I really want to tell you from a ‘senior’ prospective that it is indeed useful when you are in my stage trying to find a job. I am busy with job application this semester and until now I realize how hard you need to try to get only one of interview opportunity and how hard you need to try if you want to stand out during this interview. The peer review of resume and application letters, peer teaching on interview skills and mock interview have gained me a lot.

Some final thoughts:

I really think this is an excellent module. Although there is a lot of work needs to do, I think they really worth it because I can feel the progress I have. What is more, I think this module really improves my awareness of soft skills and that is why I say it is also a start. The module ends however the learning and improving never stops. I will always pay attention to my communication skills.

Last but not least, besides all the skills I have learnt, the people are also what I value the most. We work together, eat together and play together. We share our thoughts and feelings. I think it is an asset of my life!

OP Reflection

Hi all. Firstly, thank all our classmates for giving us some support and patience during our presentation and ask some challenging questions during the Q&A session. I would also like to thank my team members, Xiaoshi, Sylvester and Wyhow. It is a great experience to work with you guys.

I have watched through the video several times and tried to find the strengths and weakness of the presentation. I really think the video method is a good way for self-reflection because it allows me to see myself in the audience’s eyes. I have found many problems which I have not thought about before. Below is my reflection of my presentation.

Preparation

During our initial brain storming of the ways we could use in our presentation to make it more interesting, Xiaoshi come up with the idea of news broadcast to cover the problem finding and survey analysis parts. As these two topics are relatively boring,we think a news broadcast is a good way to grab the audience’s attention.

We originally planned to use Powerpoint for our presentation and I had come up with my old way of slides with many cute pictures. Thanks for Wyhow for introducing us the software Prezi, which has a brilliant interface. However, after I went through the presentation skills and slides guide Brad mentioned to us, I thought I had better changed the way of my presentation from “funny and cute” to “Professional”. Then I changed most of the pictures from clip art pictures to the more professional ones. At the same time, we decided to cut down the words on the slides to let the audience to pay more attention to our presentation itself.

I think the weakness is that we did not have enough rehearsals and we did not have ‘a full rehearsal’. During our rehearsals, we did not fully play like the real one; we still refered to our notes or slides sometimes. Thus during the real presentation, when there was suddenly nothing to refer to, we tended to get nervous and forgot the words.

Delivery

After watching the video of my presentation, I think there are several strengths and weakness. The news broadcast idea is quite creative and sounds interesting, the video and the special “StepUpNewsAsia” logo look quite natural and real.  

One biggest weakness is the less of organization of the whole presentation. It appears a bit messy. We actually had discovered this point during our rehearsal, but we failed to find ways to improve it. I think this may due to the difficulty to find a natural transition to bring the news broadcast in.

I have also found some problems regarding to my own delivery. One is that I did not speak very fluently. As I wanted to practice my oral speaking skill, I did not write a script and memorize it. I did not want to turn the presentation to reciting. Although I practiced for several times, I still cannot made it very well during the presentation. I think I need to practice my English further. The other problem I found is that although I did not recite, it sometimes sounded like I was reciting. I did not speak with variations of tones and speeds to show some emphasis. I also found there was no pause between sentences which may make the audience tired and difficult to listen to.

Audiovisuals

We had two videos used in this presentation. I think the student interview one is quite good as all the students we interviewed looks quite natural. The way of the video is also the normal way of interviews in a news broadcast. The second interview with Wyhow, who plays as the professor is also done well. However, the problem is that it does not show professions because it is obviously a fake one by interviewing someone in the team. However, we still show our thanks to Wyhow because he acted quite well.

One of the biggest weakness or mistake we have made is the sound system. Although it was fine at last due to the help from the other group, it still leaves a bad first impression on our presentation. I think this is a lesson learned that we should pay attention to every detail.

The Prezi is quite a good software. However, as we choose to use the cell phone to control it, there are some problems. The cell phone went to standby mode after a short while when I was presenting. When I tried to click to change the slide, sometimes the first click only ‘wake’ the cell phone and I need to press a second time. This resulted to the unsmooth way during my presentation.

In conclusion, I think this presentation is good lesson. Although it had some problems, we still did not regret to try the new way of news broadcasting. I think we need to challenge ourselves to try something new and progress with making mistakes and reflection.

Yes or No?

When thinking about the intercultural communication, the first thing comes up into my mind is how to answer the Yes /No questions in different cultures.  I myself have made many mistakes with just Yes/No and often express myself to the opposite side. You may not believe I can make some mistakes on Yes/No question because the answer should be quite straight forward. Here shows a dialogue between an English speaker and a Chinese Speaker. Maybe you will also get lost in the end.

A:  Did you anything?

B: No

A: So you did not eat anything.

B: Yes

A: Did you eat?

B: No

A: So you did not eat

B: Yes

A:……????......

Actually this misunderstanding is caused by the different way to answer the type of question ‘don’t you do xxxx?’ or ‘Aren’t you xxxx?’  For Chinese, the complete answer for ‘So you did not eat anything’ should be ‘Yes, I did not eat anything.’ However, for English speakers, the answer will be “No, I did not eat anything.’   When only answering Yes/No in short, the meaning is just opposite.  This intercultural communication problem sometimes can lead to some serious results because it is the opposite understanding of what one wants to express.  Both the parties think they express themselves and understanding the other quite well, however, misunderstanding comes about without any sign.

I think effect intercultural communication is not only about knowing the other cultures, it is also about putting yourself into that culture.  For example, when I learned English many years ago, I knew the above different answers. However, I still cannot answer it correctly because I still use my own way.  Although it is quite hard to think in a different way, I believe it is quite possible after some practicing.

Appplication Letter ( General Company Template)

Guo Chen

35 Prince George’s Park Residence 5

Block xx,  Singapore 118429

(0065)xxxxxxxxx 

xxxxxxx@gmail.com

Sep 2 2010

Recruitment Team

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dear Members of the Recruitment Committee:

I enjoyed the campus recruitment talk in NUS and it helped me gain me some insights into the consulting industry. After consideration of the job requirement and my personal interest and career objective, I would like to apply for  xxxxxxxxxx  position. I think my qualifications and personalities make me qualified for this job well.

As an electrical engineering student, I have a strong technical background. My problem solving and fast learning abilities are well reflected through my internship and technical projects in school. For example, I learnt a new programming language in three days during my internship in DSI and solved the insufficient memory problem which troubled the team for a long time. However, I do not limit my horizon to the technical problem. By studying relevant courses in business strategies, marketing and human resource management, I have made a good business proposal to The Body Shop International Group and solved some business problems.

Besides the hardware knowledge, I also pay attention to the development of my soft skills. I have joined many activities and held the leadership position in NUS Chinese Drama Makeup team. My oversea experience of student exchange program at University of Edinburgh also gained me excellent communication skills and adaptability. What is more, I am quite open-minded and like learning new things.

I believe my combination of technical background and various soft skills is an excellent match of this position. I am also enthusiastically looking forward to putting my knowledge and experience into making contribution to xxxxx. Please feel free to contact me and I hope you could know me better through an interview.

Yours sincerely,

Guo Chen

Interpersonal Conflict - How to refuse?

This interpersonal conflict dates back to my middle school, but I can still remember it clearly. There was a debate competition among classes in school and I was in charge of the debate team of my class. There were about six students signing up for the debate and I need to choose only four of them. I went through a short interview with each student and found out who were better. However, one of the two who I decided to refuse was my best friend actually. I thought about how to tell her about it and then I decided to let the other person in charge to tell her. I originally thought the other person in charge would tell her that we, as a team that thought she were not good enough. However, the reason that I, myself thought her as not good enough was told instead. Besides, the situation that I let the other person told her the reason made her easy to believe that it was just me who decided to refuse her. This was quite an embarrassing situation; I did not know what to do and what to say to her. We saw each other every day but felt uncomfortable.

I think this interpersonal conflict is the general case of how to refuse the people who are good friends or even relatives in life, especially in workplace. It is definitely right to put your group in the first place, but how to solve the problem left for your own?

Why Effective Communication is Important to Me

First of all, welcome to my blog and I am glad to share some thoughts through this blog with you!

As to why effective communication is important to me, I would like to first share with you what I think effective communication is about. Besides the common definition of effective communication like expressing and delivering the ideas clearly, good listening skill, effective writing and speaking skills, there is another aspect I think many people may have ignored.

It is about “not only listen to the words, but also listen to the mood”.  Besides the words and meaning one could catch, the mood or the ‘psychological need’ sometimes appears to be more important during a conversation. Sometimes people say something but do not mean it. It is because people would like to use it to express some emotional need. This is especially common among close relationship like family and close friends. One example could be dad comes back late and mom says: how come you come back so late?  If the dad only says because I have an urgent meeting, I guess mom cannot be satisfied. Actually mom does not only want to know the reason for coming back late, but more importantly mom wants dad to show that he is sorry and he still loves the family and cares about them.  The reason is that in this case mom feels herself be ignored or becomes less important thus there is an emotional need to be recognized.

Thus effective communication to me is more on observing the situation and satisfying the others’ need. This will help other people to have a sense of importance and fulfilled. I think this is the background that effective communication can be carried on afterwards.  Effective communication is around us every day and probably every moment, a good communication skill help me to play good roles in different phases of life like being a friend, a student, a child, an employee and probably a wife and a mother in the future.  All these phases come together to be life itself and the key to a satisfying life is effective communication.