With effective communication skills, selling ice to an Eskimo doesn’t seem too Herculean anymore.

I was looking through all my six blog posts which I have written before embarking on the task of penning down my reflections for ES2007s. Indeed, I have learnt and gained an insight on the different aspects of communication where I have often neglected and paid little attention to before taking up this course.

From my first blog post, I mentioned the importance of the different aspects of communication which i still hold fast to them. However, after attending the entire course, it has made these somewhat abstract points into something real.

I was first brought into the world of understanding body language,
where more often than not, how one truly feels is often communicated in this way.

Body Language- The one thing capable of betraying your mouth.

I managed to put these skills to the test where I helped to resolve a conflict between two friends of mine by encouraging both of my friends to learn to put themselves in one another shoes. And it worked !!
My friends who are currently studying in NUS told me that they would like to take this course next semester too. ( A good news for you, Brad (: )

This course has also highlighted to me the importance of written communication, where in many situations like applying for a job, where our written communication is often assessed before the assessment of our abilities. Learning to adopt a direct/indirect approach in conveying good/bad news message aids me in writing a letter that will be interpreted correctly by the reader and helps in improving interpersonal relationship.

Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.

Indeed, it was an enriching 48 hours spent learning the “why and how” of communication. I believe I will continue to learn to communicate effectively as I await different situations that will put my skills to the test and to help further refine it.




Short note:

To my classmates and Brad : Thank you all so much !!

Hannah is a second year Life Sciences undergraduate in the National University of Singapore. She chose to pursue this course as she has always been amazed at how every thing in the universe has a part to fuifil, a critical role to play irregardless of its size.

She is an individual who believes very strongly in teamwork as
together everyone achieves more.

Being in a team allows her to develop a better understanding of her strengths and weakness and thus teaches her to learn to accommodate and respect other individuals.

Being a keen learner, she is highly motivated and enthusiastic in achieving her goals, both short and long term. She thrives on challenges as she deemed them as stepping stones towards greater success and valuable experiences are often gained through difficult times

She can connect very well to people as she is sensitive towards others. Her sociable and caring character has enabled her to work very well with people and thus have forged many strong friendships along the way.

Performing on stage (singing/acting) has always been one of her interests as she enjoys conveying the emotions of the songs or character that she is performing, to the audience. It requires a high level of discipline in order to achieve that, as one has to learn to put aside his/her current thoughts and feelings in order to portray the right emotion.






Yuk Lum and Hannah during of one of their choir performances (:


She also strives to be a Christian that walks closely to her Lord, and to be able to glorify Him in whatever tasks she undertakes.

Note: This is written using a third person account as I was reading through my teachers' testimonials in my report cards before writing the above mentioned.So I thought it would be interesting to write my own biodata from a different person perspective.

(edited)

Since the 8 September 2008, where my group “ Brad’s Bad Children” , first sat down for a formal meeting, discussing the possible research topics and the allocation of designations for the research project, my group has indeed learnt from one another during the one month spent writing the report.

For instance, my group members and I had varied writing styles and thus , when combining the different portions of the report which we were each assigned, it was not an easy task as the report tend not to be cohesive. Thus, extra time was spent in editing to adopt one particular writer’s style in order to ensure the smooth flow of the report.

My group's favourite meeting haunt (:


Another challenge we met, which I assumed most of other group members likewise faced too is packed schedules. Adding on to that, some of us had three to four mid term exams during the week before we handed in our first draft, thus we had to juggle many “variables” in order to ensure that there was sufficient time to do the report and to prepare for the exams.

Teamwork was thus demonstrated in overcoming this challenge as my group mates helped one another out whereby when one has finished the assigned task, he/she will help the other who was facing a difficulty in completing the task due to the large workload.
How sweet !!

Thus, to summarize, if I had to comment on strength and weakness of my group,

Strength :
Everyone would put in the extra effort to source for information for others in order to make everyone’s workload lighter.

Weakness :
We tend to lose focus easily and maybe rather disorganized. However, we managed to overcome this by deciding on the agenda of the meeting and ensuring that the objectives of each project meeting were met.

In retrospect, working together with three people of different personalities has enabled me to realize the importance of effective communication. It is the channel to ensure tasks assigned are carried out efficiently and a solution to any disagreements that occurred due to differing opinions.

My group learnt to employ this tool, which thus has enabled us to come up with a report, which we are most satisfied with.

The irony of a culturally diverse place

This incident happened during one of the recent afternoon lectures, which I attended three weeks ago. During the first half of the lecture, a test was given and for the second half of the lecture, it was used as an open discussion of the test question during which answers were given.

There were many who raised hands and verbally presented their queries towards certain questions and the discussion thus became spontaneous.
Then, one foreign student whom I presumed to have come from India or Sri Lanka, raised his hand and began to voice his views on a question.

As he spoke with a very strong Indian accent, many could not understand what he was trying to convey and soon, there were giggles throughout the lecture hall. The professor requested for the Indian student to repeat what he said again as I presumed she too could not understand the student’s queries completely. He tried repeating again, this time slower but his voice was drowned by the sniggers and giggles of the students in the lecture students. There were even some students who tried mimicking his strong Indian accented English and many burst out laughing upon hearing that.

The Indian student became very frustrated and slumped back to his seat, looking very hurt. The professor saw what had happened and told him to look for her after the lecture has ended and then, she continued the lecture.

I was seated at a considerable distance away from him but I could see the disappointment and how hurt he was through his body language. In my opinion, he probably felt very hurt when the students around him were laughing and making fun of his accent and no one near him tried to help by conveying his views towards the professor.

I was taken aback by how insensitive and disrespectful some of the students could be and the irony was this incident took place in a culturally diverse country where being cultural sensitive had being taught since primary school. Further more, what I am most afraid of is that these students might have caused the Indian student to be reluctant of speaking in public confidently again due to this discouraging experience.

Natural Heritage of Singapore

The issue that I would like to research on is whether NUS youths view Natural Heritage of Singapore as part of the nation's identity?

This idea dawned on me when I bypassed the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research in the Science faculty. I went in to take a look and realized that it houses a large collection of plant and animal specimens, some dating back to the already extinct specimens from the time when Raffles first stood on Singapore’s shores.

It then occurred to me that while many of us probably knew about the heritage of Singapore, be it her founding history or her diverse cultural heritage but
how many of us are aware of the Natural Heritage of Singapore?

Many animal and plant species that used to dominate early Singapore and described as plentiful in a journal written by Sir Stamford Raffles, have now became rare and some are even extinct like the banded leaf monkey.
On a more optimistic note, Singapore in fact contains about 60% of the coral reef species in Southeast East Asia, despite our small size. However, the rich diversity of the coral reef species is constantly threatened by sedimentation.

Therefore, one of the objectives of this study is to highlight the rich natural heritage of Singapore and the importance of preserving it as our survival is so intricately linked to our natural environment.
Another objective is to promote natural heritage as part of the nation's identity in order to ensure more efforts are being put in to preserve the heritage, just like how much efforts were put in to preserve the cultural sites.

An attitudinal survey is thus required to find out the views of Singaporean youths on whether they will connect natural heritage as part of the nation's identity. A possible sample group could be the NUS science faculty students. This survey would thus allow us to better understand the level awareness of the natural heritage of Singapore and thus enabling us in coming up with more appropriate measures where necessary, to promote awareness of the biodiversity in Singapore which is a heritage that is richer and more diverse (quantitatively)than our cultural heritage.

(edited)

HAPPILY EVER AFTER (:

Hello everyone !!!
Thanks for all the very valuable comments.

The problem in fact between Ariel and Belinda has been resolved and they have remained the best of friends till the present day (:

In fact, Belinda felt very guilty when she told Ariel that it was difficult to be friends with her as she felt that friendship should not be measured by who has more achievements and who has less. Besides, in the long run, she is bound to meet people who are even much better than her , and thus if she is going to carry on having this mindset, she is bound to lose many friends.

Ariel, on the other hand, was glad that Belinda told her how she felt and she became more sensiive towards Belinda. She constantly encouraged Belinda to continue to pursue what she likes and reminded her that it is the process that counts, not the results.

A chinese saying " 人生得一知己，死而无憾 ".
It means that in a lifetime of a person, having found a confidante
makes this life on earth, a life without any regret.

Like Poles Repel ?!

When you rub two things together, friction is generated. Similarly, when you put two or more people together, friction tend to be present due to our different personalities and perspectives.

The following is an actual account that took place 5 years ago. The names of the individuals have been amended though to protect their privacy.

Ariel and Belinda have been the best of friends since secondary one. They were classmates and they even joined the same Co-Curricular activities like the student council and the school choir due to similar interests.
Gradually. their friendship grew stronger as they were spending a lot of time together and they were each other’s pillar of support and encouragement.

During their 4 years in secondary school, both of them tend to set the same goals as they had similar interests.
They both wanted the position (vice-president) in the choir executive committee,
and they went to audition for the lead role in the school’s musical. Both even participated in the annual story telling competition organized by the school.

Ultimately, the results of the competitions ended in favour of Ariel. She was voted as the vice president of the school choir, she won the story telling competition and she managed to land herself a lead role in the school’s musical.

As such, Ariel often shared her joy to Belinda, expecting that she will happy for her but only to realize Belinda often got very distracted and would tend to look away.
Gradually, Ariel felt that Belinda was distancing herself from her. She finally went to talk to Belinda face to face about the distant feeling that she was getting from Belinda.
Belinda told Ariel that it was becoming increasingly difficult being friends with her because she felt very stressed being with someone who is so outstanding.
All that she had wanted, she never had a chance because all the chances were given to Ariel and all these made her felt very inferior.

Ariel felt very hurt and tried explaining things to Belinda that she never meant to vie with Belinda for anything as she was just pursuing what she liked.

“ But it’s not easy being friends with a superwoman like you.”

That was the last thing that Belinda spoke to Ariel.

If you were a friend of the both of them and Ariel came to you for help because she very much want to salvage the friendship that she so cherished,
what suggestions would you offer to help her ?

Something about non-vebal gesture .

This is probably the MOST CONTAGIOUS non verbal gesture.

So, pass that S.M.I.L.E on !!!

( :

For many of us, communication has started in our infancy stage, where it gradually transforms from the “ er, ber, woo” (infant) to the string of words we are often using to communicate now.

Honestly, I probably will never spend time and ponder on the importance of communication because it is so ingrained in our lives.
Little did I realise that the process of communication is
much more complex than it really seems.
It is not just a mere translation of our thoughts into words, body languages etc, but more often on learning to interpret and be interpreted correctly.
However, in many situations, there is often a loss of meaning in the messages transmitted and that is when effective communication comes into play.

Loss of meaning can be attributed to potential sources of errors, which include perceptual biases, cultural differences, and the use of language. These potential errors can cause a message to be interpreted wrongly, hence causing misunderstandings.
For example, a strained working relationship can occur between a boss and his subordinate if a boss misinterpreted his subordinate’s reason of absence in work. Thus, learning to recognize these errors enables us to be objective in interpreting messages.

Having effective communication skills enables us to understand the different communication networks and channels, thus we are better able to choose a more appropraite channel to achieve the best result of communication.
For example, a face to face channel in a semi formal setting will be appropriate in gathering feedback from subordinates on improving the team’s work performance.

Communicating effectively also ensures the maintenance of good interpersonal relationships especially in the event where one needs help.
When we learn to be empathetic and to listen actively, we are then better able to help others. Thus, problems can be solved like in the case of understanding the reasons for a colleague’s work performance discrepancies and suggesting solutions to help.



Thus the way we communicate with others
affects how they respond and feel about
what we have said (or not said! )