Before coming to Ireland I had lots of expectations and I really wanted to learn different ways of writing research reports particularly designing surveys, communication styles, ways of working in a team and time management skills. And indeed my experience has lived to my expectations; moreover, I have learnt CVs, personal statements and interviews, things I didn’t imagine I could learn during the course study in Ireland.
While in Ireland, I really wanted to attain presentations skills and master the effective communication processes so that I be able to relay messages in ways that the recipient finds it easy to understand every bit of my communication. And based on my learning pexperience, I can affirm that I learnt a lot and I was able to put into practice the communication skills including talking, listening and nonverbal skills.
Again my talking skills, an imperative aspect of communication was on the spot light for my difficulties in stay at Ireland. My inability to communicate well in groups hindered my desire to be good in team work during earlier times of my studies, but I have been able to overcome the challenge, in fact during the last weeks of the semester I have been outstanding in team work, due to the improvement in my communication mystery.
As a learner, I have realized that I am good in presentation skills because of improvement in my communication during the course study and elimination of the major barriers to communications that I had. Actually, my ability to learn and master the communication process have contributed significantly to my presentation skills, because through this I was able to listen to advices during course presentations and improve on my weakness.
Definitely I will tell every interested person who want to study in Ireland not to think otherwise. The Ireland academic culture is so friendly to foreign students as well as the citizens and it is so interactive and involving. It is highly advanced to the extent that it encourages communication across cultures without any bias.
If I were to start studying again there are a number of things that I would do differently. To start with I would not hesitate to be involved in group work because of barriers to communicate effectively. Secondly, I will pay more focus to learning and putting to practice the different communication styles that are learnt in the Developing Academic Practice module (Link and Hill, 1970).
In future I intend to work for a competitive organization; therefore the effective communication skills I have learnt will be necessary for communication with people from different cultures that I will interact with every one in the job market freely. Also, the presentation skills and the lessons I learnt on team work and critical thinking come in hand for my future job market and they are necessary for making me very competitive. Moreover, the lessons on CVs, personal statements and interviews, together with the communication styles are always a requirement for any successful person, thus the things I have learnt this year are completely relevant for my future development.
In the stages of reflective learning, through noticing, I realized that I had some knowledge on what it takes to communicate effectively, because I had some good talking and bit of listening skills, though my nonverbal skills was very poor. And, in the module, my attention was really attracted by the way someone can relay information better by learning and practicing a basic skill like listening skill.
These lessons have made me to be very relevant in the current world. Because I can now communicate freely, through presentation skills I can report my class findings with more confidence, and generally I can now manage my time better than before the module.
In addition, the lessons have learnt makes me good and contribute to my efficiency and effectiveness while working in groups. This is something I really missed before, and to some extent it led to my underperformance in academics and lessons that involved group work. And now I can use the lessons I learnt to improve my performance in all aspects of life and general group performance.
My most preferred learning style is where the instructor uses lots of teaching aids and pictorial exhibits with some humor to ensure my activeness in class. Indeed, the projection of some of the topics in this module was quite good and I liked that very much. In fact, this made the instructor to encourage me a lot, and at long run I was able to put into practice the lessons I learn in class. However, the group presentations were not motivating at the beginning and I felt that they were really frustrating.
Just as discussed above, the desire to learn effective communication and barrier to communication was the most encouraging aspect of my learning, specifically the talking, listening and nonverbal communication. And, because they have already assisted me in my life skills, I think Academic Practice and Communication is a very relevant module to study. Indeed, it is in this topic and the preceding presentation that I was able to learn the most.
Reference
Link, M., Hill, W (1970). Hill-Link Reflective Report of the Developing Academic Practice and Communication. Random House.
