Critical Reflection

 Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. Having a positive mindset is the most important factor in achieving our goals. Looking back, I have come a long way from the person I used to be to the person that I set out to be. From the start, I recognize that the pace of my speech would increase when I speak/present to a large group of people. The goal I set for myself at the start is to overcome this weakness. Having ample opportunities to step up and address a large group of people throughout the course while it was a generally enjoyable experience, I did make a few mistakes along the way. However, due to those mistakes, I learned some valuable lessons as a result. In terms of achieving the goals, during the presentation of the technical report improvements can be seen as compared to my old self. During the process, I realized that there are a few methods that will help in calming ourselves during the presentation. One is taking a deep breath in between slides/pointers to reduce the nervousness and our pace. Another important factor is to know what we are talking about. This is where confidence comes in, by knowing the things that we are talking about we will have the confidence to speak out clearly and within a reasonable pace. I managed to decrease the pace of my presentation by taking deep breaths and making sure I have in-depth knowledge of my presentation. Having said that I believe that I still have long ways to go in terms of my communication skills, be it presenting in front of a large group of people to communicating through non-verbal means. One of the things from this point on is to be more confident and taking initiative in learning. By doing so I will be able to improve myself in terms of communication.

From the start of the module, writing skills are something that I foresee myself to work and improve on. Maybe it is the way the current generation is or just Singapore's culture, we are exposed to Singlish and it has integrated into our way of life in form of texts and verbal communication. For instance, the formation of my sentence will be Singlish and I would need to make the effort to keep clear of Singlish. With the effective communication module, I was once again exposed to Verbs and Nouns and the fundamental of the English language. It also makes me realized that my English is weak as compared to course mates. Knowing where I stand in terms of my language has certainly shone a light on something that I have overlooked and needed addressing, in the future I would need to communicate with people internationally and good command of the English language is important. As the saying goes "it's never too late to start", by changing the way I communicate every day I believed that over time my command of the English language will improve. The biggest takeaway from effective communication is the realization that things cannot stay the same and there are lots of work to do if I want to succeed and achieved my goals.