Final Reflection on Learning

I remembered that the first “speech” I gave in front of some of you were the “Story Telling”. Although I had written a script with some points I wanted to cover as preparation, I felt very nervous when I stood one or two meters away from you to deliver the speech. I had to repeat what I’ve said to earn myself some time to think about what I should say next. I felt upset when I finished my story that day.

The first formal speech I gave was the peer teaching, which I think is ok. I thought I can do it after finishing our slides. However, I realized I was wrong after we did our rehearsal, because I got stuck quite a few times during the rehearsal. Therefore, I lacked of confidence when I did my peer teaching. But I learned a lot from my partner and the comments you gave, I thought that I can do better next time!

Time flies to the mock OP, I went through my part a lot of times for preparation. I finished my mock OP fluently as I thought, but I didn’t pay attention to the eye contact or smile. Thanks to those comments, I knew what aspects I need to improve when doing the real OP.

I, myself, can feel the differences between the first speech I gave and the OP. I was confident, clear and concise. What’s more, I paid more attention to make eye contact with my audience and kept smiling.

This module did help me a lot to communicate better in English and make friends! I feel lucky that I chose this module! During the class, we had lots of interesting discussion about effective communication, interpersonal conflicts, intercultural communication, surveys, interviews and our projects! Apart from peer teaching and OP, the discussion about intercultural communication and mock interview helped me a lot. I think I will definitely do better in a real interview! Thanks my “HR group”!

It’s really fast that this semester is nearly coming to the end, which means my exchange time is going to the end. I will cherish those happy time I had with you all! It’s so hard to say goodbye!

Do contact me if you are going to China in the future! Thanks and best wishes to your final exams (Actually I don’t want to mention that :p)!

Reflection on Oral Presentation

Apart from peer teaching, this is the second formal presentation I had so far. I think my oral English did improve comparing to my peer teaching period, but I still need a lot of practice.

The moment I stood in front of the class, I felt so nervous that I nearly forgot what I should say to begin my part. However, as I slowly went on my part of the presentation I didn’t feel as nervous as the beginning, and I could focus on what I wanted to convey. The more I could focus on my words, the more confidence I was.

To be honest, I just practiced a few times before my peer teaching rehearsal, so I did not do well on that rehearsal. When I felt sorry about my performance, Chris told me that practices makes perfect. Following his advice, I practiced again and again this time. I also asked my teammates if my content is good enough to go. Thanks to their advice and the rehearsal with them, I had a better performance today!

I think I remembered to make eye contact with my audience and keep my body in a good gesture. What’s more, I kept my content to be clear and concise. I also increased my tone and slowed down in certain parts to emphasis the key words. But I was a bit nervous during some parts, especially when I made some mistakes. Therefore, I did not finish what I had prepared to say in my part.

My part covers methodology and summary, so I used bullet points instead of pictures to illustrate my points. However, I think the arrangement of these bullet points is not very good. Some of them overlap each other. Maybe I should use simple phrases instead of sentences.

Hope I can do better in the future!

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Please feel free to leave comments! Your advice can help me improve a lot! Thank you!

Evaluating Intercultural Behavior

Several weeks ago, my roommates and I had a party with our Korean friends.  Since some of us didn't know each other before, we had a self-introduction part at the beginning of the party. The introduction began with those Korean friends. They told us their names, majors, their home universities and their age. When the introduction came to our turn, we just simply followed their pattern of introduction except telling them our age. However, after we finished, they asked about our age. We felt somehow strange to tell somebody whom we met for the first time about our age, but holding the opinion that not to embarrassed others, we told them our age.

After the party, all of us Chinese thought it was quite impolite to ask about people’s age, who you don’t know well. So we all felt uncomfortable when they asked about our age.

In our Chinese culture, age is privacy. Therefore, you can’t ask others age, especially female age. But in Korean culture, they have an extremely strict hierarchy according to one’s age. Age decides the salutation and status. When they meet someone for the first time, they will make sure their age. In this way, they won’t offend the elders.

Although Korean culture was deeply affected by Chinese culture in a sense, they could be very different in some detail parts. So being aware of the differences, we can avoid lots of embarrassments and offensive behaviors. Culture can affect what a group of people think of the world and how they treat everything around them. It is always inherited from the previous generations, rooted in their history and changes according to the growing environment. Even though many Korean cultural rules are the same as traditional Chinese rules, Korea and China have different developing environment for many years, which resulted in different cultural behaviors nowadays.

But I don’t know if we should follow Korean rules based on age hierarchy? Since we are younger than our Korean friends, need we call them brother or sister according to their culture? Any opinions?

Post #3 Application Letter

Zhou Yi

XXXXX Residence XXXXXX

#XX-XXXX XXXX

XX XXXX Avenue

Singapore XXXXXX

7^th September 2011

XX XXXXX Rd

#XX-XX XXXX Tower XX

Singapore XXXXXX

Dear Sir or Madam,

RE: Internship - Project Management & Business Development, Job Ref No. AL_MN_IN_081

I am enclosing my resume in response to your advertisement for the above post which was posted on the XX Website (http://XXXX.XXXX.com.sg/) on 18^th August 2011.

I study in Sun Yat-Sen University and will be graduating on July 2013 with Bachelor degree in Mathematical and Computational Science. I am now an exchange student of the National University of Singapore (NUS), School of Computing. I did short-term internships in the news department of the Shaoguan Local Television Centre and the lab of Shenzhen Institute of Telecommunications during the winter and summer vacations of my first year college. I feel that these demonstrate my verbal and written communication abilities. Also, my experience as the venue volunteer of the Opening and Closing Ceremony Operating Office of the 16th Asian Games shows that I am a motivated and organized person who is a self-starter and can multi-task. I think my two years first prize scholarship of school fund surly demonstrate my academic leadership. I believe I can manage the work with Sales Analyst and have a better understanding of IT area projects, as I am currently study mathematics and computational science.

I’m interested in IT area. The internship your company offered will give me a chance to apply what I’m learning during my college. I do hope that you will look favorably at my application. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Zhou Yi (Ms)
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Hey guys,feel free to leave your comments:)Thank you!

An Interpersonal Communication Conflict Between Close Friends

One night, A was chatting with her close friend B freely. B talked about a boring award ceremony she had to attend tomorrow.

“It’s a waste of time!” B complained,” Maybe I can ask someone to attend that ceremony instead of me.”

 “Cheer up! To accept the award on behalf of our department is wonderful!” A tried to cheer up her friend, but A felt lucky that she don’t have to attend that.

After a short pause, B asked A suddenly:” Are we good friend?”

“Indeed!” A answered without hesitation, and wondering why B asked such a silly question.

“What if I asked you to do something you don’t want to do?” B looked at A, and asked seriously.

A felt somehow surprise, she said:” Why asked me such a question?”

“Just answer me. Will you do that for me?” B seemed don’t want to explain.

Holding the opinion that not to promise anyone easily unless you can do that for sure, A asked:” What is the thing that ‘I don’t want to do’?”

“It doesn’t matter!” B said.

A paused for a while, and answered:” Well, no.”

B turned around to look at somewhere else. After a long pause, B looked a bit sad and said:” I think we are not close enough to be good friend. As for me, I will do anything if my friends want me to do even though it’s something I’m not willing to do.”

Actually, that’s something happened to me a few month ago. I felt she used the” good friend” to force me to promise her something (maybe attending the ceremony for her) that day, so I just refused her. But I didn’t expect she felt hurt. Should I change the way to answer that question, maybe give an obscure answer? 

Why Effective Communication Is Important To Me?

The answer to this question for most of you may be: because I’m not good at communication, because I want to be more competitive in job interviews, because I need to improve my relationship with the people around me, etc. But as for me, an exchange student from China, the answer could be a little bit different.

To be honest, I can communicate with others in Chinese very confidently. I know how to choose certain channels and words to express my feelings, my thoughts, my attitudes well, but when it comes to English, things change completely. I don’t know if the same way will have the same impact. Before I open my mouth, every nerve of me is strained, when I open my mouth, I feel brain blank occasionally. Therefore, when I saw this module and this question, I just interpreted them into” Professional communication in English”,” why effective communication in English is important to me” automatically. Not only do I need to learn how to convey my thoughts well, but also to learn from all of you, my dear teacher and classmates ,how to make my communication effectively.

In fact, I am always aware of what I want to say, I mean the key points, but sometimes I am so fear to miss something important that I always spend too much time explaining rather than focus on the main points. In order to make my speech concise and enjoyable, I need to be armed with effective communication skills.

What’s more, I want to make more friends and keep good relationship with my friends, family, teachers and classmates. The main way to accomplish that is to communicate with them effectively, to fully express how I’m willing to be friendly and to love them.

That’s why I took this module.

P.S: I am very poor at writing. Hope I express myself well J