Critical Reflection

       When I knew I had to take up effective communication during my first trimester, I was quite scared. The thoughts of essays and presentations just send shiver down my spine. And yes, it was that bad. Due to the fact that being a grown up, I still have lots of grammatical errors in my essays and speech. I cannot help but feel embarrassed by this. Despite the fact that I dislike this module, I still went for the class. After the first few lessons, I have grown to love this module. Even though language was my nightmare and I still made many silly grammatical errors, Ms Ho, our lecturer did not despise us despite the fact that we do not have perfect English at this age but rather she kept encouraging and helping us with our language in terms of essays, presentation and technical report.

       I really enjoy every session of effective communication as I get to discover a whole new level of language, and how beautiful it is through Ms Ho. Every assignment was enjoyable as well, as it was interesting. The technical report was an eye opener for me as I get to see how a real technical report looks like and how incredible my team and I can come up with a technical report without any knowledge at first. It still amazed me whenever I come across my technical report. On top of that, through this module I have learnt how to write a reader response and it was my first time writing it which makes it a really special experience for me as it was pretty cool to actually “correct” the writer even when my language isn’t really good as well.  Overall, I feel that I have learnt a lot from this module and I am not too sure if my language has improved but I know I have gain many insightful lessons from Ms Ho on this beautiful language and I cannot wait to discover more. Effective communication has changed my whole perspective on language and I cannot believe I am saying this but I find language more interesting and enjoyable now! 

(P/s: Thank you Ms Ho for everything, the encouragement and the constant smile that made our lessons more enjoyableJ I really enjoyed your lessonsJ.)

Reflection on Oral Presentation

           For the oral presentation, my group and I presented on the reduction of carbon emissions by private vehicles. My part was to present on the benefits, potential challenges we face with the installation of blade filter and conclusion of the whole proposal. As much as I love to talk, presentation is my weakness. When I present, I get really nervous and I tend to speak faster than my usual pace. On top of that, when I had to maintain eye contact with my peers during the oral presentation, it makes me even more nervous than I was already. Other than being nervous, I am pretty satisfied with my overall performance as I get to deliver my intentions of my slides across to the class. As for my slides’ design, I felt that it was a pale comparison as compared to some other groups who had professional and nice slideshow in my class. 
         
        Through the mock presentation and reviews done by my peers, the feedback given to me was to cut down on my hand gestures and body movements while I was presenting. Also, they told me to briefly elaborate and explain on the calculations of the proposal. I heed their advice, and on the day of the presentation, I did a brief explanation on the calculations part, but the feedback given to me by the professor was that it was too brief and not many people understand how I derive my calculations. I was a little confused since the peer review contradicts what professor has said but since the presentation was over, I shall take this as a learning point and not make the same mistake again. To sum up, I hope to improve on my language and presentation skills so I can be more professional when presenting for my next oral presentation.

Peer Review for Technical Report Writing

Peer Review for Matthew, Hui Min and Wei Tin's Technical Report.

In the benefit section, the benefits of the solution are clearly presented. The group has shown their researches and also facts on the benefits. In text citations are clearly cited as well. On top of that, there are well illustrated data and pictures, information in general, for readers to understand the technical parts of the proposal. In the evaluation section, potential challenges are well explained. The group has listed 3 different types of potential challenges and has explained each in detailed based on their research studies. Under this section, they have also come up with a solution to solve these potential challenges that they have listed down. In the research methods section, the method of research done by the group was clearly explained. There was a clear explanation on why their team has finalize the plan on retrofitting the commercial buildings in industrial park and also how the team suggested the effective placement of the solar louvers to reduce the internal heat gains as well as to maximize the absorption of sunlight.  In the concluding statement, the group has included a final summary and they also reinforce on the proposal with their reasons once again. Besides that, they also conclude with a comparison of both their product and a traditional solar panel to reinforce on their point of having the proposal. In the reference section, majority of their references are credible sources from the local government, BCA authority. The citations are all relevant. The in-text citation does not have APA style. The format of their references are wrong as well. In the visuals/graphics/charts section, all of them are used to present key concepts of the proposal and data. The group does not have irrelevant sources and all of their data presented are relevant to what they proposed. In the appendix section, their appendix are correctly formatted and titled, but in their body paragraph when stating the appendix, it was not in the correct format. To sum up, overall, I think the team did a good job in terms of language use, content and organization. 

Reviewed by Rebecca. (15 November 2016)

Task B1: Descriptive Reflection.

2a. Your English Language Journey:

            All my life, English has always been a weakness to me. Even though it is a language used globally, at times, I find it difficult to make a proper sentence without making any mistakes. For example, the correct sentence structure used, the correct tenses and the correct pronunciation. Moreover, there are a lot of “conditions” in the English text that we have to pay attention to or else, the sentence structure could be wrong. To add on, we also need to know when to use the correct tenses, grammar, adjectives and verbs in a sentence. These are basically nightmares to me as my foundation in English is not strong enough to know what is right and what is wrong when I speak and write. 

            My perspective of English - being my weakness, changes was when I had the courage to learn from my past mistakes and learning from it when speaking or writing in English. From then on, I find myself having the courage to challenge myself in speaking and writing good English. Despite having some mistakes in my sentence structure initially, I did not condemn myself, instead I learn whenever people correct my mistakes and try not to make the same mistakes in future again. Till this day, the only achievement I feel proud of myself for English is scoring an A in my assignments during my polytechnic days. To me scoring a B in English is really difficult, let alone an A. 

            Thus, having an A for a few of my assignments was a very satisfied accomplishment throughout my English journey. Through this journey, I also realized that having to know your mistakes and to correct it is really important as it can help you to convey your message across better with good English. To sum up, every day is a learning journey for me as I discover new “languages” and different (hidden) meanings behind this language I called, English.