"COURSE REFLECTION"

Looking back at my first blog post, I have emphasized that communication is an important tool for a successful society. Furthermore, I have even talked about the verbal and non verbal cues. When I wrote my first blog I was not quite sure about how these things are applied in the society. But as I gone through the 12 weeks of this course, I have gained insight of how really communication is important. In essence, I learned that effective communication is not just about the exchange of information, ideas and feelings; it is also about understanding and being understood in verbal and nonverbal messages. I learned that even the way of delivering a single word is very important for an effective communication. For example, in oral presentations the appropriate volume and speed are essential.

For 12 weeks of this course, the part which I felt that it was really useful was “Job search communication”. I understand that even the pattern of writing a resume depends greatly on its outcome for a particular job. As I view my resumes which were written prior to this course and also after this course, I came to know that this course has really enhanced my skills to a great extent. Another advantage, I gained from ES course is the opportunity to do a survey report. Even though the report was a bit stressful for me, this experience helps me to broaden my skills of how to do a survey and also to write a long formal report. I also had the opportunity to get new friends through this module. Moreover the videos shown in class help me a bit to estimate the difference of good and bad ways of communication. This course has helped me overcome my fear of communication a bit.

On the whole, I feel that this module is absolutely beneficial for all students specially graduating students. Even though this course has high workload, I was really happy that I learned things which were very essential for my future career.

BIODATA

I am Aishath Nishana, a third year undergraduate majoring in chemistry at the National University of Singapore. First of all, describing about my personality, I am a positively-thinking individual in every aspect of life that I face, and this is one of my greatest strengths. One thing that I believe in is the virtue of being silent. I have always believed that “Speech is great; but silence is greater for success”. Being optimistic and silent, I have succeeded in achieving many goals in life. I like to discover things, to think and appreciate the wonders of the nature scientifically and hence I chose chemistry as my career. Regarding my role as a university student, I am proud to say that I have acquired great skills in the Chemical Laboratory field which would help me in achieving my research goals in future. Despite being a science student, I have also acquired knowledge on banking and accounting from my past one year work experience in Bank of Maldives. It was from this experience that I learned to work hard under pressure and gained the ability to work with deadlines. The reason why I have pursued different fields for work experience and my career is to broaden my horizons and gain knowledge in different fields of study. The experience gained through two fields gave me an insight to choose the best career that is suitable for me. Moreover, I am very keen in researching on the chemical compounds related to the human body and drugs. Being a final year student, I hope that my acquired knowledge and skills, as well as my positive attitude, would help me in achieving my research goals which will be beneficial for the better development of our nation...
My areas of interest are web browsing and reading current affairs.In addition,I am very interested in reading things related to religion and culture.I like to meet people from different cultures and to learn theirs cultural style.

"Culture as a barrier for Effective Communication"

It seems clear today that the essence of modern culture is nothing other than communication. Hence in this post I would like to analyze on the barriers of communication. Specifically I wish to elucidate on “Culture as a barrier for effective communication”

Culture is the practice that a group of people adopts in their lifestyle. Culture differentiates the clothing, food habits, the values and the beliefs of different groups of people. There are different cultural groups. The most important is the nation followed by ethnic groups and religious groups, gender, economic back ground and professions. Since there are many groups effective communication with people of different cultures is especially challenging. This is because culture modifies the people’s ways of seeing, hearing and interpreting the world. For example, same words can mean different things to people from different cultures.

Here, I would like to focus deeply on the challenges faced during intercultural communication. The most common challenge faced in intercultural communication is language and the accent. Furthermore, body language or the gestures also differ in different cultures. For example, we could notice that the gestures shown below indicate different meanings in different countries.

Fig1:In America and England this sign means OK, well or good. Where else in Latin America and France it is considered as an insult.

Fig 2: Raising your hand up means stop in America and England. In some Asian countries this gesture is used when asking for permission

Fig 3:Telling someone to come to you by curling your finger is acceptable in America and England. But this gesture is rude in many Asian countries like Singapore as this sign means death.

Culture not only acts as a barrier to oral communication but it has influences on written communication too. For example, the dates are written differently in different countries. Like in most Arabic countries the date’s system is different from the English system. In addition the naming system and also the format of the address writing are also different. Thus we could notice that culture acts as a barrier to both oral and written communication.

I being acknowledged to the above facts, I would like to ask suggestions on how intercultural communication challenges can be rooted out since effective intercultural communication is vital for business and also social development between different cultures.

Evaluating Cultural Behaviour:

EVALUATING INTERCULTURAL BEHAVIOR:

This incident has been taken place at a workplace in America. Due to public post I would like to indicate the company’s name as X.

My friend, Nafaa(girl) joined the company X in united states of America who was graduated in NUS last year. She was a Malaysian (Muslim) and was specialized in Computer Engineering. Most of the staffs from her department were Americans. One day, the company organized a meeting with all their company’s share holders to share their views on budget. In the meeting hall, the office staffs greeted their share holders by saying “Hello” and by handshake. When one of the share holders (American) came near to Nafaa, she extended her greetings to him by saying “Hello”. But when the shareholder extended his hands, she refused to accept the Handshake. The Shareholder felt ashamed before others and was very frustrated at her behavior with him in front of other people.

My views:

Culture is a way of human behavior where they practice their belief. From the above incident we could notice that religion is a main fact which paves the way for cultural practices. Nafaa refused to accept handshake offered by the American shareholder. This is because in her culture (Malaysian Muslim) a handshake to opposite gender is prohibited whereas in American culture, hand shake with a smile is the common greeting practices in every occasion with everyone.

Some facts on Malaysian Handshake culture:

The traditional Malay greeting is a handshake with both hands resembling "Salam". The man offers both hands, lightly touches his friend's outstretched hands, and then brings his hands to his chest to mean, “I greet you from my heart”. A Muslim woman greets a gentleman with a nod of her head and smile. It is noted that either man or woman handshake is prohibited between opposite gender in all occasions.

Some facts on American Handshake:

In American culture, greetings are casual. A Handshake with a smile and a “Hello” are all that is needed. Shaking Hands is considered as the standard greeting in business situations.

In my opinion, I would suggest that it is good to have knowledge on other cultures in workplace. It is suggested that the shareholder being a great businessman in the society should have an idea to deal people of different cultures and gender wise.

Evaluation of Business Correspondence:

Letter for Work Experience

G.Rose Garden
98668693
Date :09/09/2008

ADK Hospital
Subject : Work Experience

Dear Sir,

I wish to apply for a Work Experience position in ADK laboratory for 3 weeks during my vacation period of semester 2(May to July).

I,sama being a student at MCHE college majoring in life science. From my early childhood days I like science field and was also interested to work in laboratory rather than working in offices of assigned tasks. I like to explore new things in the laboratory and learn the wonders of nature. Hence there forth I choose ADK hospital to train because of its excellent medical service and also being largest medical organization of the country. If I was given an opportunity to train, I assure that ill perform my duties to the best of my ability.

If you are prepared to consider me, please contact me on the above telephone number or write to the above address.

Hoping positively, I have enclosed the necessary documents of my identity and referees.

Thanking you

Yours faithfully,
Aminath Sama.

My view of the letter:

The letter shown above is a letter received by my uncle who worked in HRM department of ADK Hospital. This letter was sent by a student studying in MCHE (name of the university) for work experience during her vacation period.

Negative comments:

• First of all, in my point of view, the sender address should be in right top corner of the letter and the receiver address should be in the left corner of the letter.

• It would have been better if the sender could write the contact details below the letter. Also in addition to the date, day and the month name in words inclusion must be written.

• Nextly,looking at the salutation of the letter we find that it would be good to say, Dear Sir/Madam rather than just saying sir, because the sender probably will won’t know who the receiver of this email is.

• Analyzing on the body of the letter we could notice that she forget to give many important details in which the receiver might expect from the writer of the letter. That is she missed to give details such as her current year of study. In addition, she also missed to give information about the exact period she wished to have the work experience. Also she missed to indicate the department she wished to work for.

• We could also notice some usage of short hand notations in this letter. That is words like “ill” instead of “I will”. Also it could have been better if she could told the full name of the university rather than just typing “MCHE”

• Initially the tone of the letter was pleasing but towards the end, the phrase “If you are prepared to consider me” affects the tone of the whole message.

Positive comments:

• Good indication of why the writer prefers the particular field of study and the particular organization.

• From this letter sender’s interest towards the work was seen effectively.

. Good closing tone of the letter.

Why Interpersonal Conflicts???

First of all, I wish to elucidate some points about emotional intelligence (EQ) since most of the conflicts occur due to failure to control the emotions. EQ is the ability to control oneself feelings with respect to other people’s feelings and emotions in order to build strong relationships.

For example, let me explain this example of my friend’s conflict with the employer of the organization. One of my friend name Ahmed after completing his school level worked in airport as an accountant. From his early child hood days he was very much interested to do higher education but due to financial difficulties he was unable to go for higher studies. Recently he applied for a degree course which was sponsored by the organization he worked. With full of hope and dreams, he applied and was successful in getting that scholarship from the organization. Now the second step for him was to get approved by the university. He filled the necessary documents and submitted to officer incharge. A week later he was shocked to hear that he was not approved by the university. This was disgusting for him as so many colleagues were approved for the course who were lower than Ahmed’s standard.

He was so disgusted that he made an appointment with the college registrar officer to justify the reasons for his disapproval. He came to know that his application which was sent from the organization was too late to get the required course.

From this example we can find that this incident may affect the relationship between employee (Ahmed) and employer of the organization. If Ahmed had been good in EQ,the conflict between the employer and the employee can be prevented. But since it was his early childhood dreams would he control his emotions to the employer in charge???Would Ahmed be sincere and good enough to share his views with the employer after this incident???

On the whole, I would like to clear out that if Ahmed has the ability to control emotions, this incident will ends in no conflict. But if he hadn’t controlled his emotions, this may end in conflicts such as Ahmed may argue with the officer in charge. Ahmed can complain to the higher officer rather than arguing with him. Thus we find emotional intelligence (EQ) is an important fact to be developed by each and every human person for developing strong relationships.(Note: I didn’t mean to say to control emotions and remain calm for injustice events).