Final Reflection

Time flies, I find it so true. We are coming to the end of this module and gearing up for exams again.

Returning to my first post, my understanding of the value of effective communication has not change. That was to be able to interact with each other and also enjoy the process, to present myself well and improve productivity level. However my way and value for effective communication have change.

This module had made me become more self-aware in my writing and exposed myself to the different ways my classmates write. This in return helped me gained experience. I liked the blog post assignments. Although it took up a lot of time, it allowed me to know more about my classmates and what they undertook to excel, especially the post on biodata. It served as a motivation and insights on what can be done.

For my group project, I really like to thank my group-mates, Kalene and YuanYuan for being so efficient and cooperative. Working as a group, different viewpoints would definitely arise, that depends on individual efforts to overcome it. I am proud to say, we are able to compromise and work for the best, despite the tight schedule. Good job everyone! Not forgetting our considerate tutor, Christine. Thank you! Through the project and interview, it had helped me better understand UHC and what has been done to help NUS undergraduates to cope with studies too.

Continuous learning is the key to success. I feel the communication skills that the module had taught us are very beneficial and I will definitely put them in good use. For instance, the skills were expressing your views in blog, the resume and letter writing, the report and presentation. Group comments on individual presentation skills were very useful and helped identified my weaknesses and to improve on it.

Overall, I have enjoyed the process and do keep in contact! As in life sciences, classes are big, where individuals often only hangout with own group friends. Unlike the chance we got here to work in smaller size tutorial groups. Good luck to everyone exams, happy studying!

Jane's Biodata

Jane is currently in her third year of studies in National University of Singapore. Her Major is in Life Sciences with concentration in Biomedical Science.

She gained her internship experience in 2008. Jane was attached to the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology through NUS Vacation Internship Program. It was a privilege for her to work under a post doctorate and was given a research project to embark on. Through this experience, she had learnt many laboratory skills that spanned across multi-disciplinary fields such as animal work, human stem cell culture and confocal laser microscopy. This internship had provided her with insights of the real-life research working environment. It had also trained her to work independently with minimal supervision, take initiatives and learn the importance to be organise and be responsible.

Beside academic pursue, Jane had also participated actively in co-curriculum activities (CCAs). She was in Science Camp (SCAMP) Program Committee as part of Science faculty Freshman Orientation Program (FOP). She was also involved as a marketing member in a sub club called “Space”. This experience had taught Jane to be creative and work effectively as a team.

During her studies at Yishun Junior College, she was appointed as the class treasurer and secretary in Photographic Society. She was also glad to be given the opportunity to be involved in Work Attachment Program. It was at TPY Senior Citizens HealthCare Center with Surgical observation at Gleneagles Hospital. Jane was awarded Silver in National Youth Achievement Award in 2005.

In her secondary school days, she was enthusiastically involved in Band and was appointed as staff sergeant. She led and together with the members’ effort, the Band achieved Gold medal at SYF Central Judging in 2003. Beside the CCA involvements, Jane had also taken up a wide range of jobs during school holidays. Such as student care centre teacher, customer service officer and sales.

During her free time, she like do some sports which includes swimming, jogging and tennis. She also loves to play pool, practice pilates and photography (fyi, the blog header photo was taken by Jane at one of the Singapore Nature Reserve Park). She is also currently exploring into scuba diving.

The experiences Jane gained had helped her to grow in her learning, polish up her communication and leadership skills as well as learning the importance of humility. She is keen to learn more and lead a fulfilling life.

Nonverbal Communication

I’m interested in nonverbal communication (NVC). Have you ever looked at someone and just felt that he or she was an interesting person? I am sure all of us at some time in our lives sensed a person to be interesting despite him or her not saying much or without having to say a word.

Our course text (Chew M.L, Lee K.C, 2006) had listed the types of NVC on pg 20 to 23. Over the internet I had found three interesting and powerful nonverbal actions without saying a word as claimed by the author; gooey eyes, illuminating smile and capitalizing posture. I would like to further discuss on these three interesting ones.

The author described gooey eyes as “peel your eyes off the person like a sticky toffee being lifted from the surface”. I don’t really quite understand how you do that, but the idea is to show your confidence and let the other party interested in you, want to know more about you. We all know that eyes are important part of our body, without eyes, human communication will need to rely on sound, “without good eye contact, communication can be destroyed”. That is very true. In our culture, maintaining a good eye contact and not staring is a skill.

I love Takeshi Kaneshiro eyes, so charming. :)

“A good smile is contagious because it makes the smiling person and the witnesses, feel good.” Smiles are important, it is part of our facial expression and it can affect how good one first impression is. Smiles have different types. Compare a cold turkey smile that doesn’t radiate into other people with a beautiful smile that light-up someone heart. You need to build positive emotions inside yourself which then a true smile will show on the outside.
I love Jennifer Aniston smile, it is always alluring and Barack Obama signature smile. (:

Last but not least on the capitalizing posture. It is as simple as “… lift your chest up. That’s it! Your head will rise, your neck will straighten, your shoulders will drop back, and your back will straighten…” A good posture, I feel can tell a person apart from being attentive to being lazy. So straighten your back now and stop hunching like a tortoise!

NVC can be incorporate into verbal communication and helps liven up things. Of course NVC comes with practice and observing. You can try to observe someone who you look up to and who is famous. Observations will help to notice what works and why it works. So how important do you think NVC plays in your daily interaction with people? Or how can you improve on your NVC skills?


Source: Improving our “Signals” and “Beings”. (15 October, 2008). Retrieved March 9, 2009 from http://www.earthlingcommunication.com/blog/

Evaluating Intercultural Behavior

I would describe the intercultural behavior in local context.

When I was in Secondary school, there was once that a Malay girl and I were tasked to organize a barbeque outing. We need to marinate chicken wings and other food and she suggested that she could do the marinating and buying of utensils. I thought I could bring tongs from my house, as to save some cost, but she disagreed. I was puzzled and later she explained to me that, everything need to be Halal, as in the utensils used for marinating and for barbequing need to be clean and not used before in a Chinese household for example, because Chinese may have used them to cook food like pork.

It was then that I realise and understand the difference. All along we knew that Malays ate Halal food but sometimes we may forget the importance of it and what it really means. There was also another incidence that was when a class outing was held at Pasta Mania, one of our Malay friend came along but he did not order anything. Then we realise it was because the restaurant was not yet Halal certified. He did not voice out because he did not want to cause any inconvenience, this is just like the Malay girl that I had mentioned above, she did not want to trouble me and hence she volunteered to do the stuffs that need to be done in a Halal way.

The scenarios mentioned above had helped me to understand the importance of effective communication too. Besides explaining and understanding ones cultural norms and values, one needs to learn to be sensitive as well and also learn to compromise to each other cultures. This is especially important in Singapore as we are a multi-racial and multi-religions country.

Business Correspondence Critique

Please click on the photo attached for larger version of the letter. Alternatively, you could save it and use the zoom function to view the letter better. Thank you.

Firstly on the courtesy part of the letter, it had made me felt that the organization (The Body Shop) had appreciated me as a member and had attached benefits/rewards for me to continue my membership. They had used positive words such as “great”, “pleased to invite you” and proper tone in the letter.

Next on the correctness, the letter was written in proper English, not that formal but friendly style. However I felt that the last sentence could be improved. “We wish to also remind you that your current rewards stamps will expire with your card, so don’t forget to redeem all product/treatment rebates before 31 October 2008.” It could be change to “Please do remember to redeem all product/treatment rebates before 31 October 2008, as your current rewards stamps will expire with your card. We wish you have a pleasant shopping experience with us.”

This letter fulfilled the requirements on conciseness. It had listed the options and rewards clearly within a page. Regarding clarity, the letter told me exactly what I need to know such as my membership expiry date, how much I need to top up for Star loyalty status and how I can renew my membership. However, when I first read the letter, I was a bit confused whether I could redeem either rewards or both. Maybe it would be good to add another short sentence, “We are proud to offer you two renewal rewards.”

This letter also showed coherence, for instance what options were available to renew the membership followed by what were the renewal rewards. It had cohesion too such as usage of repetition about the expiry date. The letter had linked the ideas in a logical fashion.

Furthermore, the letter had shown concreteness and completeness. Informing my spending to-date and the details of the benefits I would get for renewing the membership. The letter had mentioned to me all that I need to know and contacts of the organization were provided.

Overall I felt that the letter was well-written, it had indeed lure me to renew my membership, since it was cheap at just $10 and had good marketing strategy. However, I didn’t renew due to some other reasons.

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

An interpersonal conflict that I could recall which is close to my heart was a quarrel between my sister and me.

My sister is married and would come home once a week to attend church together. Often, she would ask me if she could use my laptop and internet. As in my household, I’m the only one who needs to use computer, so there is no desktop; my laptop is the only one available.

One day, she wanted to use the laptop and promised would only use for an hour. I have a report due the following week, but not the following day. So I agreed to let her use. One hour was up and I rushed her to let me use the laptop, but she requested for another hour, and the things she was doing were not important; re-sizing photos.

I guess I snapped at her and said "I thought you were doing your office work! You are wasting my time! Hurry up!"

She was upset and told me off "Seems like every time your exams are near, you become impatient and you don’t seem to like me coming home. Next time I will not come back!" Then she stormed to the living room.

My heart broke, maybe because I felt accused, my sister was not doing important things with the laptop, and the truth is I like her to come home. Ever since she moved out few years back, I would miss the times when we shared the bedroom together and look forward to seeing her every week. At that point in time my heart ached maybe also because I was scared that she meant what she said in not coming back home.

I reflected upon what had happened and tried to stand in her shoes. I agreed that whenever my exams are near, I would be impatient, rushing her. Maybe this was due to the stress and deadlines to meet. I didn’t inform her that I had important work to do using the laptop too. I believed if I had communicated with her, she would not use the laptop.

Furthermore, the disagreement over the usage of laptop happen a few times before too, and maybe we didn’t sort it out, holding it and at that day we eventually got annoyed with each other's actions. My poor attitude over the period of time might have made her upset as well.

I went out and apologize for my rude actions and told her that I love her to come home and explained to her why I was annoyed. She understood and things were back to normal again.

There would be disagreements in a family, it can be small matters like the one I had mentioned above or a more serious case, how will you resolve it? Communication is important in all relationships, especially with our loved ones. How well do you manage your stress and how well do you communicate with your family?

Effective Communication Skills

Chamber mentioned that communication is an art. I definitely agree with it, because I feel that one needs to know how to use it well, be flexible, experience it and not just by memorizing a set of guidelines. Communication is not just a daily routine; it is a way where people can interact with each other and also enjoy the process.

Developing effective communication will help one to convey accurately his views, intentions and achieve the desired outcome such as being able to convince his audience. The other party will be able to understand what exactly you are trying to say or even feel it is a pleasure to speak to you. It can take place in a formal or informal setting such as in meetings, presentations, communicating with family members and friends.

Communication is more than just speaking what you want to say, it also involves your tone, gesture, active listening, right use of language in a comfortable manner and it also depends on who you are speaking to.

It is important for me to grasp the skills of effective communication. Besides the points mentioned above, as a student I would go through written communication such as writing reports, oral communication for example asking questions or presenting ideas and to also prepare myself in a working world after graduation.

Through past jobs and internship experience, I understand the importance to present myself well. Besides creating a good impression and avoid misunderstandings, effectively communicating not only benefits yourself it can also benefit the people around you. For instance, working as a customer service officer, I get to speak to many different customers who called in with different enquiries. Callers may sound helpless or angry due to some mishaps. It is important to be patient, show empathy and help them to solve their problems as much as possible and also to let the callers feel at ease via the usage of proper communication.

No doubt effective communication can improve productivity level. If one lacks effective communication or ignores it, one may not be able to convey accurately what he wants to say or unable to build up good relationship with people or may even lose patience in communicating when his intentions are not understood. Therefore, it is important to learn and use effective communication.