Blogpost 4

Over the course of the 13 Weeks of the COM150 Classes, I was taught on how to identify my errors, and learn from them and improve. I have written on different experiences and learnt plenty on human interactions. In regards to my objective post, I have written that I would want to achieve two objectives. These objectives are to learn to speak with tact, and to be a more confident speaker.

After these classes, I have seen significant changes and improvement. Firstly, it can be seen by how I interact with my teammates. While in polytechnic, it is important to have good teamwork for projects. This is even more true for Projects in University as it is not as simple as before. Instead of Lashing out at my teammates when they are off the topic during discussion, I choose to understand their thoughts and try to give suggestions tactfully. This made us have a better understanding of each other which better facilitated our brainstorming of idea together. However, there were still situations where I didn’t hold back and might have caused some discord in the group.

What I could have done better would to be was to process and use my words carefully when in discussions as if I said something wrongly, it could lead to disaster as we all depend on each other. Even in an argument, by being tactful, it could reduce the damage done. Before you say something, how of how you’d feel if someone said it to you.

On another point, for being a more confident speaker, there was vast improvement made. From the amount of presentations that I had to give, I gained experience and got better with it. Even without sufficient preparation, I could maintain my composure and present what I needed. If this was done before these classes, I would have panicked and lose my thoughts.

To further improve, I would join a Toastmasters Club, with that I can have more chances to present and to learn from others as the phrase goes, “practice makes perfect”. In time with more practice and tips from the rest, I see no reason how to not be a confident speaker.

Week 8 / Resolving Interpersonal Conflict (Blog post #3)

This involves my 2 classmates, Sam and Kit. As Kit joined our class in-between the semester, where the rest already known each other, he was a new student in class. Seeming like a friendly guy, we went to talk to him. After introductions, he admitted that he has low Emotional Quotient. He also mentioned that previously in his studies, the class hasn’t been very good to him, causing him to be ostracized, resulting in bad result. However, after our observations, we realize he lacked situation awareness, tact and a very poor English foundation.

Due to his age, we felt pity for him and decided to help him out to finish his studies. Sam being a nice guy, found it hard to reject Kit’s advances even though where Sam has yet to complete his own work. So, over time, Kit just handed his poorly done work to Sam and Sam would redo it for him.

So, after multiple occasions, Sam knew he had to do his work first so he wasn’t able to help Kit. Kit took this negatively due to his lack of situation awareness. He thought that Sam was sick of doing his work for him and lied to him. He probably felt annoyed and thought it was the same as what the other class did to him, this being the first step, refusing the help and then finally ostracizing him, fueling his hatred and anger towards Sam.

So during peer evaluation, Kit was tasked to evaluate Sam. However, due to the previous incident that Sam couldn’t help Kit, he evaluated Sam badly, thus causing Sam’s result in that module. Sam flared up and argued with Kit, the argument didn’t stop. It went onto Facebook and Sam was determined to make sure the class knows what happened. Using social media, he got his aim and Kit was then ostracized again.

In my opinion, Sam could have taught and encouraged Kit on how to edit his work and improve it rather than doing it for him. Kit on the other hand should understand that no one is obligated to help him and he should be grateful that Sam is helping. If you need somebody’s help, you should be more understanding. As the proverb goes, “give a man a fish you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. It is more worthwhile to teach someone something than to do it for them.

So readers, if you were in Sam’s position what would you have done? 

Evaluating Listening Skills & Nonverbal Behavior (Blog post #2)(Revise)

During interpersonal interactions, subconsciously we are emitting non-verbal signals and reading them. All these non-verbal behavior such as our body movement, posture of our arms, eye contact and actions can send a strong message across. Staying silent can also be a powerful non-verbal behavior. One of such occasion that I observe would be the conflict between my two friends. Sum and Sam. Sam has the tendency to be very outgoing and sometimes slightly over the top, which might end up as a disturbance to Sum. How Sum would react most of the time is to get angry and yell if applicable or to keep quiet and walk away. There is one specific occasion which I felt that there were a multitude of non-verbal skills and actions that occurred in this specific example.

It happened during Chinese New Year, where all my friends got together for a steamboat reunion. This time, it was slightly different as we were invited by Sum’s mother. While we were enjoying the steamboat, Sam tried to match make Sum with one of the friend in the presence of Sum’s mother. Sum then stared at Sam with a frown and subtly shake his head in disapproval of this subject. Sam, not catching the non-verbal signs, decided to carry on. Due to Sam’s tendencies to not listen when Sum ask to stop, the only way to stop Sam would to be to yell at him. However, as Sam was a guest, it wouldn’t be appropriate to do so and would be deemed as very rude. Following that, Sum’s usual self-changed from being chatty to being quiet as it can be seen that he was uncomfortable with the topic.

Sum then tried to get them to change the topic by circling the chopstick around the steamboat, signalling to start eating..However instead of noticing these non-verbal Que,more people joined in the fun. Sum body tilted to face another direction so as to avoid everyone. When Questioned, Sum would avoid the question, forcing a smile and refusing to take part in the conversation,with the chat still ongoing, Sum left halfway, non-verbally stating that he had enough.


Due to Sum’s Family culture of being the more traditional type, words are not to be spoken without caution as it will bring up a multitude of questions which might end up very ugly if answered wrongly. So therefore, most of the time Sum will remind us before entering to not ask too much questions or keep away from certain subjects. At the same time ,i can only feel that age play a very big part in shaping their behavior, young people has the tendency of doing stuff without thinking about the consequences because when you are young everything . Just like this scene where Sam did not spare a thought for Sum even though countless non-verbal skills is displayed. 

Emotional Intelligence in Interpersonal Communication

Emotional intelligence also known as Emotional Quotient is how someone handles situations with their emotion. While emotional intelligence(EI) represents only one part of interpersonal communication, it can adversely affect the result negatively or positively.

People with high EI tend to be more sensitive to other's emotions, they tend to overthink what people might talk about, which might lead to undesirable results. While low EI people tend to be less oblivious to people's emotions and care less for others.

I personally feel having high EI is definitely better, it takes more than just years of experience and self reflection to improve on EI. With the constant improvement on your own EI, you would be able to have a better ability of reading other people.Likewise, this makes it hard for you to get offended during conversations as you will be able mentally draw the line between humor and degradation

Descriptive Reflection: Strengths and Challenges in Communicating

One of my strength in communication is that I am able to communicate freely with people due to my outgoing personality. By being able to communicate easily with others, I can learn from them and their life experiences, which serves a teaching if I do one day face the same dilemma they were in and I could advert their mistakes and make a better choice than they did.
However, even if I can easily communicate with others, it might not be in a good way. One major flaw that I have is that I can be brutally honest and lack tact when dealing with situations. For example, when people need a listening ear, I tend to tell them what they do not want to hear most. For people who do not know me, they might tend to misunderstand my intentions, thus offending people and giving them the wrong first impression.
By the end of the course, I hope that I can learn to be tactful as speaking without tact has caused people to feel offended and therefore poses an interpersonal problem. Learning to be tactful requires a change of habits, namely not thinking and processing before speaking. By stopping and thinking properly before speaking, it would prevent me from making hasty remarks and by stopping and thinking to organize my thoughts, I can come up with something that might not offend others.
Also, I hope that I can learn to speak more confidently as currently, I have problems speaking to large crowds of people. With a crowd, the sheer number of people overwhelms me and I will get nervous and tend to lose my thoughts. This could be classified as stage fright and I want to overcome it by the end of the course.

Setting my own objectives

It is important to have effective communication skills as it help builds or even maintain relationship. Without such skills, it will be quite difficult to properly construct and foster productive relationships. Also by having such skills, it will allow me to build an effective team and can improve myself personally as a team player.

One of the method that I would do is to first understand what kind of communication method that I usually use. After understanding what kind of communication method I use, I would next identity the weak point and strong points that I currently possess and read the article/ information to improve my weak points and at the same time further strengthening what I already have.