Final Reflection

"Has your understanding of the value of effective communication skills changed? Reflect on what you have done, on your interactions and overall learning."

My understanding of the value of effective communication has increased. Effective communication is not as easy as I thought. Theories can be quickly picked up, but to apply it well requires skills.

To have good communication skills is definitely very important. As long as there is interaction between two or more people, communication is taking place. Effective communication would reduce friction between people and promote good relationship.

This module has exposed me to as many different kinds of communications as possible, such as writing resume, doing oral presentation, and understanding intercultural communication. However, due to the short term of the semester, these different areas were not taught in depth, though I would like to explore more on each area.

While doing the assignments, I had been over-reliant on the texbook and dared not use a style which is different from the textbook. However, now I realised that I should adopt my own style of writing so as to bring out my strengths.

I enjoyed class activities when I could exchange ideas with my peers and learn to see things from a different perspective. The learning process was also enhanced by video screenings, where we could easily picked out other people's faults and learnt not to be like the characters in the videos.

My overall learning journey has been a pleasant one so far. Hope it is the same for everyone!

Biodata

"Write a 100-word biodata."


I have clear goals in life and will work hard to achieve my goals. Being an organized person who knows how to prioritize, I am very good with time management. I am logical and always use sound reasoning rather than emotions to analyze situations and solve problems. I am a responsible and dependable person who always completes the tasks assigned to me. I set high standards for my works. I am very observant and detail-orientated. Therefore, I am good in dealing with data. I am a good listener and am encouraging to people around me.

Research Project Experience

"Write about one aspect of research project experience."


This is the first time that I have done a research project of this nature. And it has been a pleasant experience so far. My group only has two members including me, so there were not any communication problems, which is common to a larger project group. As messages were only passed between me and my partner, Joceyln, the messages would not be distorted or misunderstood. In addition, the progress of generating our report is pretty fast since both of us adhere tightly to the deadline. Therefore, no last minute rushing of work occurred.

The main problem we encountered was a language problem. We were not sure of which tense to use for some sentences. For example, whether we should use "may" or "might", "will" or "would" and "can" or "could". However, this problem was solved by referring to sample reports and further clarification from Mrs Richardson.

The second problem was that our survey URLs could only be sent to Science students. Therefore, our survey results were biased towards Science students. If the module coordinator could send it to all faculties of NUS, we might be able to obtain more accurate results.

A pity would be that we do not have time to conduct face to face interviews, as I believe we can obtain more insights to our survey topic. Though we had a question asking for comments in our survey, many students gave answers which were off-track. Hence, face to face interviews might be better.

Intercultural conflict

"Describe an intercultural scenario and interpret it in the light of your understanding of cultural norms."


As Singapore brings in more foreign workers, the problem of intercultural conflicts between Singaporeans and foreign workers will surely arise. I had one such bad experience with those foreign workers last week.

I was returning to PGP on Sunday night at 8.30pm. I was going to take a bus at the harbour front centre bus stop, which had many (at least 30) foreign construction workers there. When the bus I was going to take finally arrived, all the workers rushed to the bus, shouting some words along the way and creating a din. As I didn't expect all the workers to take the same bus as me, I did not run earlier, resulting in me standing right at the back of the long queue.

Then the bus driver opened the back door for passengers to alight. However, seeing the back door opened, those workers rushed to board by the back door, obstructing alighting passengers and avoiding payment of bus fare. This totally shocked me. I felt that those workers are very inconsiderate and uncivilised.

Then as the front door of the bus opened to allow boarding, those workers squeezed and pushed. A Singaporean Malay lady trapped between them found herself losing balance and almost fell. Then she shouted, "Can you all stop pushing?" However, those workers ignored her (I wondered if they understand English). But the bus driver came to her rescue when he heard her shout. He stood up, finger-pointed those workers right in their face and use a stern tone to scold them. Another reason for his scolding was that those workers did not tap their ez-link card upon boarding the bus.

For those who had boarded the bus, they refused to move in. Instead they crowded at the card tapping machine, preventing more people from boarding the bus. And they started chatting happily there. So once again, the bus driver had to ask them to "be a gentleman and move in". Once again, I wondered if they understand English as they did not cooperate.

So the bus driver closed the door and drove off. I could not board the bus and had to wait for the next one. But within a few minutes, a big crowd of workers gathered at the bus stop again. When the second bus arrived, I was smart to run after the bus with them. To board the bus, I had to push my way through just like them.

When I finally secured a seat on the bus, I reflected on their behaviour during the journey. These foreign workers came from a land with high population density. In their country, they had to squeeze and push to board a bus. They had grown up in such a culture. When they came to Singapore, they brought the culture along with them.

However, Singapore does not have such a culture and many Singaporeans feel disturbed by their rudeness (the workers do not feel it's rude as it is their culture). This is only one of the intercultural conflicts between Singaporeans and foreign workers. Together with other conflicts, there are a lot of friction between locals and foreign workers. This explains why Serangoon residents are against converting a school into a hostel for those workers.

Not exposed to the cultures of the workers, locals do not accept them in the society. Not understanding why locals do not accept them (because they see nothing wrong with their cultures), the foreign workers will not be able to change their behaviour and integrate into our society.

I feel that the government should do something to solve this problem. Our construction industry is heavily reliant on those foreign workers. They should be taught the Singapore culture (if there is one), things they should and should not do in public. Only when they have adapted our culture can we live harmoniously in this society.

Survey Research Project

"Describe an issue or problem that you would like to research."


I am interested to do a research on increasing hostel fee in NUS. For the benefit of those who do not know, monthly hostel fee was $240 for the academic year 07/08. From 08/09, it will be $300; $360 from 09/10; and finally $400 from 10/11. With an increase of $60 (without GST) per month every year, the hike in hostel fee may put a huge burden on many students, especially foreign students and Singaporean students whose homes are too far away from NUS.

The Office of Students' Affairs stated that the rise is due to higher maintanence cost and it has been a long time that they increase hostel fees. No evident help from OSA was offered to students with financial difficulties.

The hypotheses is that many NUS students cannot cope financially with the hike in hostel fees and therefore, they decided not to stay in campus. The objective of this research study is to determine if the increase in hostel fees makes students unwilling to stay on campus.

A survey is required to study this topic because we need to know how the students feel, what they are thinking so as to come out with solutions to overcome their stated difficulties. As the target group is NUS students, emails will be sent for them to participate in our online survey. Face-to-face interviews will also be conducted to gather more insights.

Possible survery questions to ask include:
1. Do you stay in campus now?
2. Did you stay in campus for the past academic year(s)?
3. Why did/did not you move out of hostel?
4. Are you able to cope with the increased hostel fees?

The objective of the final report is to inform OSA the unhappiness (if any) of the students and possible solutions to this problem. Besides OSA, potential readers include NUS students and companies offering off-campus hostels.

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

"Describe an interpersonal conflict in detail, articulate it in the form of a question that might be answered in the form of a possible solution by members of your blogging group."


Below is a summarised version of a true account which happened in my junior college class. Names have been changed to protect the identity of the people involved.

There was a clique of 7 girls in my class. During a free period in class, Alice wanted to complete her tutorial but her good friend, Betty, wanted to chat with her instead. Betty thought that Alice could finish the tutorial at home since school was ending early that day. Despite several attempts to do the tutorial, Alice was often disturbed by Betty who asked her to stop doing her work.

Alice told Betty a few times that she was not interested in chatting but Betty did not take Alice seriously and continued to disturb her. In the end, when the period ended, the tutorial was uncompleted.

The next morning, Betty told Alice that she had finished the tutorial at home. Alice was unhappy because she only managed to finish a few questions despite spending the whole day at home solving the tutorial. Alice felt that if Betty did not disturb her the previous day, she could have done more. But Betty found the tutorial easy and thought that it could be completed within a short time.

Alice did not raise her unhappiness to Betty. Instead, she gossiped about Betty to other friends in the clique and under her unfluence, Betty was obstracised by the clique, not knowing the reason behind. Betty made many attempts to communicate with the clique but failed. Her friends treated her as a transparent person. She was sad for a period of time because she did not know why she was treated that way. Finally, Betty left the clique one day.

If you were Alice, how would you react to Betty's request to chat with you when you needed time to complete the tutorial? When you were unhappy that Betty completed the tutorial at home, what would you do?

If you were Betty, how would you communicate with your clique which kept ignoring you? How would you feel if your good friends suddenly obstracised you without telling you the reason and how would you manage your emotions?

Importance of effective communication

"Explain why developing effective communication skills is important for you."


My future career is to be a classroom teacher. This occupation requires me to interact with many people, namely my colleagues and my students. Developing effective communication skills is therefore essential for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, effective communication saves time. When the intended message is conveyed and received correctly, there is no need for communicator to repeat himself. For example, if a teacher can deliver a lesson pitched at the level of the students, effective communication can take place between the teacher and the student, reducing the need for the teacher to explain concepts time and again. In addition, instructions can be carried out in the right way, thus saving time for corrections.

Furthermore, being able to communicate effectively with others make me a more approachable person. When I can express myself clearly to my targeted audience, my audience will enjoy the communication process. This gives them a good impression of me and it is likely that they will find me an easy person to talk to. This could then create future opportunities for us to interact more.

Lastly, effective communication reduces the chance of being misunderstood. This is important in situations whereby a message needs to be passed down several layers. Often, the message becomes distorted when it reaches the last layer of audience. However, this problem can be avoided if there is effective communication between the layers of people. The consequence of misunderstanding may be undesirable if I do not know that people interpreted my message wrongly and no actions are carried out to clear the air.

In a nutshell, effective communication benefits both the speaker and the targeted audience. There are various areas to look into in order to develop good communication skills, such as the tone, specific words, etc. I hope that after attending this module, I can be both a good speaker and a good listener.