Humans were born communicators, bawling our hearts out for attention from the start. As we grow up (and grow old), people around us become less tolerant of the mistakes we make when conducting ourselves, e.g. jumping up and down while talking is cute for a 5-year-old child but unbecoming for an adult of 25. Thus, learning to express ourselves well is a lifelong process. At each phase of life, one gets to interact with different people hence it is necessary to adapt to different customs and attitudes. As Asians (or perhaps only in my traditional family), we tend to be quite reticent and leave things unsaid. It is thus even more important to perceive the hidden cues to avoid misunderstandings. It is also rare that fellow Asians will openly criticise your failings when communicating so it is critical to be self-aware. I hereby thank my close friends who corrected my mispronunciations and wrong use of tenses without a second thought.
I love chit-chatting, but the gregarious side of me only shows up when I am surrounded by close friends and family. I also speak without thinking often and to quote my English teacher in junior college, “I have a 5 second memory, like a goldfish”. To improve my skills, I would have to work doubly hard, especially when listening and recalling what others have told me.
To my blogging group and classmates (if you are so conscientious that you read my attempt as well), let’s have an enjoyable journey learning how to be effective communicators together.
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Hello.
ReplyDeleteI thought we are supposed to write about the importance of effective communication skills. Anyway, Why does having a short-term memory (" I have a 5 sec memory like a goldfish")has to do with speaking without thinking?
Sorry if i have offended u....
I am not offended. I realised that a piece of writing will start having varied intrepretaions when shown to different people.
ReplyDeleteI did write about the importance of communication skills. I just didn't want to stick the word communication everywhere so I used words like "conducting" and "perceive".
I also based my post mostly on my own personal experiences. I believed that it should be clear that speaking without thinking and poor short-term memory were separate issues in the same sentence. I guess that could be interpreted differently. I would be more careful in the future.
Thanks for this post, Annie. You make some interesting statements here, for example, when you state that "...learning to express ourselves well is a lifelong process."
ReplyDeleteIndeed it is.
Actually, to follow up what Terrence wrote, memory is related to communication skills, because if a person can't remember what has been said to them, they might have a hard time reacting to others. This is really an issue of concentration, I think.
In your post you might have been a bit more explicit regarding the skills you need to develop. You mention listening, but is that it?
Thanks for all the comments so far! Here is an elaboration on skills needed for good communication. No one in my blog group has mentioned being well read so far. It is crucial to know current affairs and history in case so one does not appear ignorant. It is also important the one has the grace to admit being ignorant to avoid misunderstanding.
ReplyDeleteSo I guess effective communication would require a lot of prior preparation. Not everyone are born good writers and speakers. Unless it was a spontaneous lesson like our active listening class, it is best to be fully prepared.
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ReplyDeleteI think you have a unique way of writing which makes one want to read on. But I think the first part concentrated a lot on how communication is important in our lives that you did not really elaborate on why it is important to you. Like in the “goldfish” case where it can be quite ambiguous how does having a gold fish memory leads to you not thinking before you speak or vice versa. But I really liked the way you wrote the first part of your post where you describe how it influences each and every part of our lives.
ReplyDelete