In my personal opinion, effective communications would mean that one can conduct
themselves appropriately in different circumstances and also being able to deliver what he or she wish to say to the audience without any misunderstandings.
To be able to express one’s ideas to others in coherent manner is something which I would like to achieve in at the end of this course. Being a typical young Singaporean, I got accustomed to speak to my friends in Singlish so comfortably that sometimes I find it challenging to string good English sentences together in a formal setting. The comfort of instant messaging on mobile devices may also contribute to this bad habit of giving short replies.
To be able to express one’s ideas to others in coherent manner is something which I would like to achieve in at the end of this course. Being a typical young Singaporean, I got accustomed to speak to my friends in Singlish so comfortably that sometimes I find it challenging to string good English sentences together in a formal setting. The comfort of instant messaging on mobile devices may also contribute to this bad habit of giving short replies.
Furthermore, I would also like to learn how to maintain a
conversation with people of different backgrounds, for example, my prospective
employers and seniors etc. This was especially so after a personal encounter
with a friendly senior employee in the internship company which I have worked
for last summer.
He asked me,” You have been here for a few weeks already,
how do you find the work here?”
And I answered,” Oh, okay lo."
At that instant, I noticed that he was quite amused by my
reply. It was then I realised that my casual and short answer probably caught him off guard.
Being a final year student would mean that I will be joining
the workforce in less than a year’s time. It then dawned upon me that I need to
have an effective communication skill so that I can present myself professionally and to avoid the above-mentioned incident in near future.
Therefore, all these reasons propel me to sign up for
ES2007S hoping that the communication and presentation skills that I have
learnt can help me to become a more confident speaker in public. As my future ambition was to become an educator, I do not wish to find myself
in a situation whereby I would be too nervous to speak in front of a class of
students.
Hello Shiying =)
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post, I can fully understand your difficulty in stinging a proper sentence as I, too, have this problem. I believe it can be due to the emphasis of bilingualism in Singapore's primary and secondary education system, as well as using our mother tongue to communicate with our families or friends of the same race. Perhaps we can improve our articulation by using English as our language of communication at school and with friends as they are the people we meet the most.
Also, I agree with you that SMS often result in the bad habit of short replies, especially because of the word limit imposed when SMS first started. I believe this SMS culture has been inculcated in users over the years because even when people are now able to give longer replies using other social mediums such as 'Whatsapp', their replies still remain rather short.
Nevertheless, we can always improve by practicing good habits and I wish you all the best in achieving your dreams!
Cheers,
Redonnia