The critical reflection

At the start of the trimester, my goal was to improve on my writing and public speaking skills. I deemed myself weak in my writing, and I lack confidence when delivering a speech. 

Throughout the 13 weeks of effective communication class, I have learnt various skills and techniques on formal letter writing, paraphrasing, and crafting a technical report. In terms of communication skill building, I had the chance to work on my writing and presentation skills during the crafting of the technical report and oral presentation. During the class, we were tasked to research on various ways to improve our report writing and delivery skills, and these knowledges proved crucial when crafting the summary-reader response, technical report, and oral presentation. Outside of class, I spent some time using online resources to further enrich the knowledge that I have gained in class and apply these knowledges in my assignments.

To further improve my learning, I should apply these knowledges that I have gained in the other modules that I will be taking in SIT. I would also further explore Professor Brad’s ‘Symbaloo’ page to gain more insights on the rules of communication. In this trimester alone, I have managed to apply my writing and presentation skills in various other modules.

One of my memorable moment came during my oral presentation, when I decided to pull a ‘Steve Jobs’ stunt. I made use of the techniques learnt in class to deliver a powerful and effective pitch, such as starting a pitch with a question, engaging your audiences via verbal and non-verbal means, and appearing confident in front of a crowd. I also made sure to articulate my ideas fluently and not to mumble filler words. I never thought that I would be able to deliver a speech of this caliber, as I do not deem myself good in giving presentations, and I tend to tense up and lose my train of thoughts when delivering a speech. By making the audience at ease, I feel that I was significantly more confident, and I started to enjoy presenting.

During the presentation, I have learnt that practice makes perfect, and ample preparation is important.  Before this module, I often underestimate the potential of rehearsing for a presentation. During my days in Polytechnic, due to the lack of preparation, I read from the slides frequently and did not engage my audience properly. I often felt that the speech delivered was not powerful and effective enough, but I did not try to improve on it. In this module, I also learnt that engagement with the audience is a powerful tool. It is important to communicate with the audience effectively so that they could comprehend and consider the proposal made.

In my formal letter to Professor Brad, I wrote that I believe in continuous learning, and good results would come to those who put their heart and soul into achieving it. After putting my ‘heart and soul’ into the module, I learnt that it is possible to be proficient in written and oral communication as long as you put in effort into achieving it.

The project has taught me the importance of collective learning. When there is effective communication within the team, collaborative learning takes place, and the team would acquire new knowledge more effectively as information is shared around. I hope to be able to apply my improved written and oral communication skills that I have gained in this module in the near future.

I would like to thank Professor Brad for his unconditional guidance and tutelage. His feedback and comments have been valuable and insightful to my continuous learning experience.