Vodcast

Subject: Self Introduction (Final) 

Dear Professor Brad,

My name is Ong Yan Xiang, one of your effective communication class student. Currently, I am a year one engineering student pursuing a degree in Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering (SIE Building Services). I graduated from Temasek Polytechnic in 2016 achieving a diploma in Integrated Facility Management with a Fire Safety Manager Certification.

During this three years of studying in polytechnic, I had slowly shown interest in my course as I am curious how buildings operate from a day to day basis and due to the global warming issues how could I solved this threatening problem and thus decided to join (SIE Building Services) after my National Service to complete my education journey. I wish I am able to create a green and energy saving infrastructure that able to protect the Earth without compromising the comfort for human beings.

My hobby is to surf the net and do research, this helps me to gain knowledge. With that information, I am able to improve myself by learning through other people mistakes. It is very important to take care of our body thus I go to the gym with my buddy during our free time. I love to do Muay Thai too. Muay Thai has shaped and boosted my confidence level and teaches me how to be humble and have self-discipline. I learn Muay Thai as I like to fight and have the ability to protect my loved one.

I have plenty of weaknesses in communication, I have a lot to learn. Being raised in a mandarin speaking family, I really have a bad time communicating in English. Public speaking in the crowd is one of my fears, I will feel anxious and start stuttering. Having a low self-esteem have to lead me to zero confident level and hate socializing with other human beings. I am extremely bad in English language and have difficulties comprehending when reading, I will get either F9 or E8 for my English examination.

For my strength, I am only able to communicate well in Mandarin. I am able to lend a listening ear but unable to communicate well with other people. I had difficulties delivering the message across to the listeners.

My first goal is to able to communicate well confidently in proper English. The second goal is to able to write well with zero mistakes in my writing.

Yours Sincerely,

Ong Yan Xiang

Critical Thinking Reflection 1

The goals I aimed to accomplish after completing Effective Communication module are to communicate well and confidently in proper English and able to write well with minimum mistakes. During the 12 weeks effective communication class, we had to split up and rotate to join different groups for different tasks. This had led me to learn how to use different communication skills to speak well with different group mates. With the mixing of group mates, I am able to slowly open up and be more approachable. Constant presentations in the class had boosted my confidence level greatly, I am no longer so anxious when facing a big audience and able to talk confidently in front of them. Peer evaluation had also helped to keep track of how I had performed in class and where I should improve on, from there I am able to know my mistakes and rectify it. With the constant writing of reports and tasks, my English writing had improved a little bit which I am quite happy with. I have achieved both objectives to improve my communication and writing skills. To further improve my communication skills, I should talk to experts in the workforce to gain more experience.

I have learned that teamwork is one of the most important aspects in terms of doing reports and presentations. From complete strangers to close friends, team Dendrophilous has slowly open ourselves up and able to talk freely without hesitating. These help to provide more feedback for our project which can convert the mistakes into something beneficial. During the report writing, we changed the whole proposal a couple of times due to some conflicts and errors and eventually after many sleepless nights we still able to work together closely and created an awesome report. I learned that there are many important factors to look for during presentation from factor such as the appearance of the presenter to the body language. When presenting, we had to control our body language such as standing straight and maintain good eye contact to project our confidence which will make our speech more convincing. To deliver a strong presentation, choice of words used is very important, key points must be emphasized and absorbed into the target stakeholders.

Overall, I had learnt a lot of things, gain lot of experiences from this module and able to meet new friends as well as getting taught by a friendly and approachable Professor Brad.