Final Reflection

Between my first blog post till this current final one, I feel that my understanding of the values of effective communication skills has indeed been developed upon. However, I would say that this "change" is not a dichotomous one. Why do I say so?

Personally, I feel that in general the core importance I have felt initially towards effective communications has largely been retained and I still take them very much into consideration to facilitate effective communications. However, this set of core importances has undoubtedly been added and built upon throughout this course. For example, during the group project, I have come to view the importance of learning to understand the level of understanding of my audience to promote effective communications with greater priority and it is an avenue of communications which I would be needing to put more consideration in to improve on my communication skills. Indeed I have gained numerous skills in terms of communicating with people around me and it has also increased my confidence in various areas as well as highlighted to me areas which I would need improving on.

In this course, there were numerous opportunities which I was able to learn and developed my communication skills. For example, communicating with known or unknown audiences via surveys, having opportunities to do presentations, materials covered during lessons etc. These have all served to build upon the core importance and understanding I had at the beginning of the module and I would liken them to being content-related and under a rigid teaching system. However, throughout this course there has consistently been a very subtle avenue of teaching as well as learning which we had in this class and perphaps adhered to unknowingly. That would be the opportunity for us to interact and communicate with one another within our class, tutor and classmates alike. This perphaps I could classify under the flexible aspect. Through these class interactions, I gained real experiences and learned from them. From communicating with strangers initally, I learned from them. From communicating with friends in the end, I learned from them. From communicating with members of different faculties and nationalities, I learned from them and this list goes on.. Theorectcal concepts learned from under that "rigid" system were instantly implemented and suddenly, the 7C's, active listening etc all became very realistic.

This form of subtle, realistic learning has also to be attributed to structure of the lessons being conducted which provides the opportunity for interaction. In this aspect, I would be referring to the sectional teaching method adopted in this module. In contrast to the lecture-tutorial method, I would say that it does indeed provide a lot more opportunities for interactions.

The learning for communications never ends and it would be an aspect which I would have to consistently practise utilizing skills which I have learned from this module and beyond to enhance and adjust my communication approach to different individuals. In conclusion, I feel that this course has indeed been an enjoyable experience and I have learned a lot of communication skills which I would be able to employ.

Thank you to Ms Kim anad everyone for this enjoyable experience and all the best for in your future endeavours!! To my classmates, all the best for the coming exams too!!