Reflection for QLK520 Module

Reflection for QLK520 Module


I believe that I will be able to apply what I have learnt in this Communication Skills module to my future teaching career in many ways. Firstly, I found the oral presentation aspect of this module particularly relevant to teaching. Through the presentation, the teacher and my classmates were able to pinpoint areas where I could better refine my oral presentation skills, such as the reduction of unnecessary words, the use of eye contact, and hook activities to interest my audience. The teacher also reminded us to vary our speech tone when we taught in class next time, to avoid being too monotonous for our students. Through watching our own presentations through the video format, we were also at a better position to reflect on areas where we could improve our speech. Writing out the speech out the template also organized my thoughts in a cohesive and structured manner, which will be very useful to me when I give speeches or presentations for my school activities next time.

I also learnt alot from the session on the proper methods of writing emails and letters. The biggest takeaway for me was how to keep my emails succinct and to the point. The lecturer showed us a excellent video on how emails in the current era can be a problematic issue to people who disclose improper or undesirable information in their email exchanges. This is especially crucial to us teachers, as emails form a part of our daily exchanges with our colleagues, and hence we need to be mindful of the content that we circulate around in our emails. The lecturer also reminded us of certain useful tips when writing emails to our colleagues, such as having topic headers for the easy reference of our audience, and the need to break down our content into succinct paragraphs. The written test also was relevant to our teaching context, as we had to address our letters to the parents in a school; from the test I realized the importance of the audience and the tone needed in the letter to address them.

Most significantly, I learnt the most from my lecturer in this module, as she exhibited the good qualities of an effective communicator to us during the course. She was particularly engaging and captured our attention every lesson without fail.  The infusion of interesting group activities into the lesson was significantly refreshing for me, and I thought that was an excellent means of communicating educational concepts to us. For instance, she taught us the Jazz Chant to highlight the importance of rhythm in speech, and  as a class we found it extremely stimulating and engaging. This illustrated to me the importance of employing one's creativity to engage the audience in a classroom context. 

Marcus