Have you ever asked why human beings were born with ears, eyes, noses, mouths ? What do these organs have in common ? Well, they are for the purpose of communication. We need to communicate with the people around us as effectively as possible. Without effective communication, we will get problems with information and efficiency in everything we do.
The only goal of effective communication is for the receiver to get the idea of the message conveyed. Let me tell you a story about myself. Last year, when I and my friends held a briefing session about CORS bidding for our juniors, no one asked me anything about bidding but asked my friends. I didn't mind that but when my friends asked me that they felt as if I was sad because no one asked me questions. It really surprised me and I tried to explain that I was very okay then. Hence, the obvious fact is sometimes, our non-verbal or verbal communication can mislead people and in some cases, it can lead to serious consequences. Therefore, effective communication is crucial, indeed.
Often do I hear that a good student may not be a good teacher. The problem here again is communication. To be a good teacher, you need to have firm background in the subject; however, it's not sufficient. The compulsory skill for any good teacher is the style he conveys knowledge to his student. If the student can understand what he said and accomplish his assignment, he's a successful teacher; unless he's merely a good learner but can't disseminate his knowledge to the others. The communication is again shows its importance in working efficiency.
To be concluded, we can't survive without communication and we can't succeed without effective communication.
Wow, that's quick and impressive work, Kelvin!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post. You've shared with us a personal experience about how you feel towards the importance of effective communication, as well as highlighted a few important reasons why communicating effectively is an essential part of our lives. Well done there!
A question: Is effective communication only about getting "the idea" of a message across? Or is it more than that?
I like your example sharing your take on the criteria of a good teacher, and have no doubt that style and effective communication play vital roles in the education process. But I would argue that there are also various other factors, besides teachers' teaching styles, that impact students' performances; and if we were to equate students' understanding and completion of assignments as determining a teacher's success, then we may risk oversimplifying the criteria of being 'successful teachers'. What do you think?
I noticed a few errors in your writing, so you may like to re-check your post before posting. For example, (1)" ...we will get problems with information and efficiency", (2)"...when I and my friends", (3)"...when my friends asked me that they felt as if I was sad because no one asked me questions.", (4)"Often do I hear that ...", (5)"The problem here again is communication" etc.
Thanks for your effort again!
I agree with the saying the a good student may not be a good teacher. I have personally experienced this during JC where I was taught by a knowledge teacher who graduated from one of the top schools. However, he was not a very good teacher as he was unable to convey the concepts and ideas across to the students well (including me). Ultimately my classmates and I begin to lose interest in his lessons resulting in the dropping in the grades for that particular subject.
ReplyDeleteHEllo KELVIN,
ReplyDeleteYes indeed, from your story, we can see that non verbal communication can give the others some form of information even though it may not be our intention to convey it as the way they perceived. On my side, I feel that my non-verbal communication is not very effective and it is not able to complement my verbal communication. When I was in secondary school, I held leadership position and had to punish those who do not follow rules and orders set by the band. I had to act as a stern figure to carry out the punishments and make sure that they do not repeat their mistakes. From my junior after many years later, they told me that during that time, they are not afraid of me because even though I try to threaten them by using harsh words or giving harsher punishment, my facial expression did not appear to be fierce/ angry/stern to them. Hearing this, I was a little disappointed as I thought that I was trying very hard to be that stern figure. Well, I guess I have to work harder in my non-verbal communication in order to complement it with my verbal communication.
Hi Kelvin,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your personal experience. I do experience a similar situation where I was perceived to be sad for not being as involved as I wanted to be. So what we can do in your case is instead of waiting for them to approach us, we should probably be the one to reach out to them and extend our help in any kind of ways.
As for your take on 'successful' teachers, I agree that effective communication plays an important part, but like Ms Lim said, there are other contributing factors as well. In my opinion, a teacher must not only convey her lessons well but also be able to motivate and ignite the students' interest in that particular subject. Anyway, its a great post to start with and hope to see more in the coming weeks.
Hi Ms Lim,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your nice comment. Actually, my personal view is the factor of making a successful teacher is to be able to convey what he thinks students should know and do to his students. So the other factors such as: motivate and ignite the students' interest in the subject - as Fahmi said, can only be fully understood by students IF the teacher has an appropriate approach, in other words, effective communication.
By the way, it's merely my point of view =P. And I'm very thankful when you pick up my error. I die die need to improve it rite now.
Hi Lisu,
Well, I held the leadership position when I was in primary and secondary as well. Therefore, I know what you experienced. Sometimes, I couldn't stand smiling when I reminded my classmates not to do certain things and it turned out to be useless as my mates knew I wasn't very serious then. Anyway, it did help us, didn't it? We became more mature and more experienced.
Hi Fahmi
Yeah, that's what I will do. My senior told me to be open-minded and dare-to-explore. So I'll try to be the ice-breaker and make friends more easily.
Hi Xiu Qin,
Well, hopefully we won't be the second version of your teacher again. So just try to enjoy and pick up something beneficial from this module
^^
Hi Kevin,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the follow-up!
We may have omitted the important point here, which is that we should not confuse teaching style with effective communication. A teacher's approach, i.e. teaching style, is different from effective communication.
I do realise that teaching style is important, and am aware of the fact that learners respond in different ways to different styles of teaching. However, I still maintain that a teacher's teaching style is not the only factor that determines whether a teacher is a successful one.
There are a number of interesting books you can read up, if you are interested in this area. Let me know if you'd like me to recommend some books to you.
That is being very cold, to say the only goal of effective communication is of information transfer from person to person.
ReplyDeleteMore than that, I feel that the interpersonal bonding that comes from effective communication is important and worth mentioning.
A simple analogy: how well you remember someone is proportional to how much interpersonal communication the two of you experienced.