Final Reflection

From ES2007S, I learned two aspects of communication that I have never paid attention to---one from the book, the other from my lecturer and class mates. The two aspects complement each other, and benefit me in my work and daily life.

From book, I learned that communication is not only about open the mouth and talk; there are a lot of theories and tips to help to achieve effective communication. When we talk, we should adjust the tone, pace, accent to make sure the audience can follow. When we listen, we should rephrase the talk in mind and respond to the speaker. When we write, we should follow 7Cs (Courtesy, Correctness, Conciseness, Clarity, Coherence, Cohesion, Concreteness, and Completeness). So here, I will follow Concreteness to say that I did benefit from this course. I followed what I learned from the course to write a resume and cover letter to apply for an internship position, and was selected for an interview. After giving a good impression to the interviewer, I got the offer.

From my lecturer and class mates, I learned that communication is not a one-time effort. It takes time to practice the rules and tip to achieve effective communication. Ms Kim always says our class is the quietest one in her three classes. She tried a lot to motivate us to apply the knowledge we learned in this course to communicate with each other, but we still kept our mouths closed most of the time. Until the last three to four lessons, we started to talk, joke and laugh in class. Especially in the last lesson—although it was a test -- we did not feel any stress but cheer up for each other. When we looked back the way we went through, we did apply the rules of effective communication when we read and replied to each other’s block, communicated in class and so on. AS time went on, we got to know each other better and built up friendship.

At the end of the post and also the course, I want to say thank you Ms Kim, thank you all my class mates. I wish you all the best!