Through this course, I had a true feeling about how important effective and professional communication is. I will illustrate this point by two examples of mine.
Before I take this course, I knew nothing about writing meeting agenda. So when I was the president of photography committee in the hall, before I arrange a meeting, I never sent meeting agenda to the members. Therefore, at the beginning of every meeting, I need to employ some time to tell the members the agenda of the meeting orally. In addition, I found it is difficult to ask the members to give some new ideas during the meeting. This might be because it is hard to think of new ideas within a short time. Based on what I learned from this course, however, if I could send meeting agenda to the members beforehand to let them know the contents of the meeting, they might do some preparation and the meeting would go more smoothly and efficiently.
The other example is that before I take the course, I did not know there is a standard format of citing references for a formal documentary material such as research report. Six months ago, I participated in an essay competition, which required the participants to compose a 4000 words essay on a certain topic and send the essay to the organizer. Today I relook at my essay and find that all the citing works at the end of the essay were done in a wrong way. I did not follow to any formal format of reference, such as APA format. This made my essay very unprofessional and I think the judgers of the competition were very likely to deduct marks because of this.
In the future, I believe, these two kinds of situation will never happen. This is because, from the course, I have already developed many effective and professional communication skills, including writing meeting agenda and composing research report. With these skills, I will be able to communicate with others more effectively.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
My Biodata
My name is Liu Zhengning. I was born in Nan Chang, Jiang Xi Province, China. I lived in my hometown for the childhood and received preliminary education there. At the age of seventeen, I received a scholarship and moved to Singapore for tertiary education. After one and half year's bridging course, I entered National University of Singapore and chose mathematics as my major. In the university, I have received mathematics training from the mathematics department. In addition, I also studied economics, which had widened my knowledge scope and probably would be my future research area. My other interests include travelling, photo shooting, basketball and table tennis playing, etc. I was described as a cheerful, frank and responsible person by my friends.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Learning experience from the research project
I have really learned a lot from the ongoing research project. Being the leader of the team, I have learned how to schedule the whole project and to ensure my members to be actively involved. Besides, I learned how to hear from the team members and make the final decision. This is useful because in my future workplace, it is very likely to be a decision maker. In addition, I am also able to see some problems that our team encountered, for example, our weak English writing skills.
Maybe because three of us are not native English speakers, sometime we felt difficult in phrasing our ideas. For example, we employed plenty of time in writing the hypothesis and problem statement of our research because both of them required a short, clear and formal expression. Indeed we had no advantages in this sort of exercise. We had to take time to choose proper words out of our limited vocabularies and make them well-organized. During the report composing, the same problems occurred. I have tried to make my explanations clear and well-understood. Moreover, after I finished writing, I always relook at my work and tried very hard to get the expressions improved. But the contents still confused the readers during the peer review. This meant my efforts did not contribute significantly to the improvement of the expressions.
In my opinion, the research project is a good practice for me. I have had a positive learning experience through doing this project. I have been able to get to know my advantages and disadvantages in doing researches as well as learning how to be a leader.
Maybe because three of us are not native English speakers, sometime we felt difficult in phrasing our ideas. For example, we employed plenty of time in writing the hypothesis and problem statement of our research because both of them required a short, clear and formal expression. Indeed we had no advantages in this sort of exercise. We had to take time to choose proper words out of our limited vocabularies and make them well-organized. During the report composing, the same problems occurred. I have tried to make my explanations clear and well-understood. Moreover, after I finished writing, I always relook at my work and tried very hard to get the expressions improved. But the contents still confused the readers during the peer review. This meant my efforts did not contribute significantly to the improvement of the expressions.
In my opinion, the research project is a good practice for me. I have had a positive learning experience through doing this project. I have been able to get to know my advantages and disadvantages in doing researches as well as learning how to be a leader.
Monday, September 22, 2008
A Scenario on Intercultural Communication
The following scenario illustrated how ineffective intercultural communication leads a failure in business.
Several years ago, a German company found a profitable project that provided by a Chinese company and wanted to invest in the project. The German company then sent his men over China to explore the possibility of the investment. The Chinese company, which is a big state-owned one, also wanted to do the business with the Germans. After knowing that the German company was sending people around, the Chinese company did a lot of preparation in order to make the deal. On the first day German people arrived, the Chinese company held a very big welcome dinner, after which they bring the Germans to watch a famous traditional Chinese play. On the second day, the Chinese company arranged a one-day tour in the city for the Germans, including bringing them to visit some historical sites. The day was ended up with another big dinner with some local government officials attended. On the third day, the Chinese company showed the Germans their project and indeed they did very well in their presentations and made their project impressive. However, at the end of the third day, the German people gave up the plan of investing in the project. They Germans thought that the Chinese company cost too much on the irrelevant activities of the project, such as hosting the big dinners and arranging the one-day tour. They thought the Chinese company merely wanted to get the investment fund from German side and did not care about the project itself. Therefore, they chose to terminate the business. The Chinese company was shocked when they know the Germans left with no deal. They actually did want to develop the project with the Germans. And they did not see any problems in their reception activities.
What can we learn from this story? In my understanding, the failure of the business was actually caused by ineffective intercultural communication. As we known, Chinese people always regard relationships among people as one of the most important aspect in their communication. Often they treat people more important than the business. In business, the extent they care about the business people can reflect how much they want to do the business with the person. However, this is quite different from the German’s opinion. The German people tend to take the business very seriously and are always much focused when dealing with business. In the example, when the Germans found the Chinese people do too much on building the relationship, they misinterpreted that the Chinese people did not care about the project at all. However, it was because the Chinese people cared about the project that they came up with such nice receptions.
(Similar examples, due to its well illustration on the importance of understanding intercultural custom, were collected as the classical examples in the MBA course in China. The insight is that: when doing business with people from western countries, focus more on the business will be better appreciated by them.)
Several years ago, a German company found a profitable project that provided by a Chinese company and wanted to invest in the project. The German company then sent his men over China to explore the possibility of the investment. The Chinese company, which is a big state-owned one, also wanted to do the business with the Germans. After knowing that the German company was sending people around, the Chinese company did a lot of preparation in order to make the deal. On the first day German people arrived, the Chinese company held a very big welcome dinner, after which they bring the Germans to watch a famous traditional Chinese play. On the second day, the Chinese company arranged a one-day tour in the city for the Germans, including bringing them to visit some historical sites. The day was ended up with another big dinner with some local government officials attended. On the third day, the Chinese company showed the Germans their project and indeed they did very well in their presentations and made their project impressive. However, at the end of the third day, the German people gave up the plan of investing in the project. They Germans thought that the Chinese company cost too much on the irrelevant activities of the project, such as hosting the big dinners and arranging the one-day tour. They thought the Chinese company merely wanted to get the investment fund from German side and did not care about the project itself. Therefore, they chose to terminate the business. The Chinese company was shocked when they know the Germans left with no deal. They actually did want to develop the project with the Germans. And they did not see any problems in their reception activities.
What can we learn from this story? In my understanding, the failure of the business was actually caused by ineffective intercultural communication. As we known, Chinese people always regard relationships among people as one of the most important aspect in their communication. Often they treat people more important than the business. In business, the extent they care about the business people can reflect how much they want to do the business with the person. However, this is quite different from the German’s opinion. The German people tend to take the business very seriously and are always much focused when dealing with business. In the example, when the Germans found the Chinese people do too much on building the relationship, they misinterpreted that the Chinese people did not care about the project at all. However, it was because the Chinese people cared about the project that they came up with such nice receptions.
(Similar examples, due to its well illustration on the importance of understanding intercultural custom, were collected as the classical examples in the MBA course in China. The insight is that: when doing business with people from western countries, focus more on the business will be better appreciated by them.)
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Research Proposal
ES2007S, with its title “Professional Communication: Principles and Practice”, is a module open to all the NUS undergraduates. The aim of this course is to teach the students how to become an effective communicator in various social settings, most especially in the workplace. It satisfies students’ demand of the knowledge of communication skills and thus course is welcomed by the students. However, it is observed that some students who are interested in the topics do not take this course. They hesitate because they worry about their performances in the course and scare of receiving low grades. These groups of people, however, are usually those who really want to improve their communication skills through the course. Therefore, the objective of my research is to inform the coordinator of ES2007S of the worries on the course performances from these students and their worries indeed set barriers to the promotion of the course among students. Another objective is to convince the coordinator that if a free S/U option is given to students who take this module, the course will be better promoted.
In this research, a survey is necessary. Firstly, students’ worries on the course performances need to be verified. By conducting the survey, the researchers can find out the true reasons of students’ hesitations. Whether the worry on the course performance is the main reason that keeps them away from the course will be proved. Secondly, whether a free S/U option works is unknown. Through the survey, the researchers will be aware of the attitudes of the students towards this special promotion. Whether the promotion is appreciated, and to what extent the students appreciate it will be answered by the data from the survey.
In this research, a survey is necessary. Firstly, students’ worries on the course performances need to be verified. By conducting the survey, the researchers can find out the true reasons of students’ hesitations. Whether the worry on the course performance is the main reason that keeps them away from the course will be proved. Secondly, whether a free S/U option works is unknown. Through the survey, the researchers will be aware of the attitudes of the students towards this special promotion. Whether the promotion is appreciated, and to what extent the students appreciate it will be answered by the data from the survey.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
One additional post
This additional post is completely beyond my plan. The reason I write it is as the following: I accidently publish a empty post and I don't know how to delete it. Therefore, rather than leave it blank, I just try to fill it with some words.
Now what am I going to say in the next few lines? Let me see... since it is now 3 o'clock in the mid-night, let's say something about "Dream".
Everyone on the earth has dreams, no matter you are somebody or nobody. The prominent American civil rights movement leader, Martin Luther King, mentioned about his dreams in a publich speech :"I have a dream... I have a dream... I have a dream... " Obviously he got so many dreams. However, the problem is, which dreams come true at the end?
Of course, having dreams is good. But don't you think we should put more emphasis on how to make them true?
In the Will Smith casted movie "The Pursuit of Happiness", the father talk to the son with the following words: "Don't let somebody else tell you: you can't do something, not even me, all right? you've got a dream, you've got to protect it. People can't do something themselves they want to tell you: you can't do it. You want something, go get it."
Yes exactly, I cannot agree more. We need to firstly set our dreams, and then protect them. In school, every book we read, every question we solve, and even every single defination or formula we learn, is indicating that we are taking further steps and are probably closer to our dreams. Therefore, don't ignore the little things we do in our daily lives. Don't think doing these is less significant than having a great dream. With these efforts, we are actually moving forward.
Well, maybe I talked too much. It is more than few lines already...Fine, that's all for this post, and good night to everyone.
Now what am I going to say in the next few lines? Let me see... since it is now 3 o'clock in the mid-night, let's say something about "Dream".
Everyone on the earth has dreams, no matter you are somebody or nobody. The prominent American civil rights movement leader, Martin Luther King, mentioned about his dreams in a publich speech :"I have a dream... I have a dream... I have a dream... " Obviously he got so many dreams. However, the problem is, which dreams come true at the end?
Of course, having dreams is good. But don't you think we should put more emphasis on how to make them true?
In the Will Smith casted movie "The Pursuit of Happiness", the father talk to the son with the following words: "Don't let somebody else tell you: you can't do something, not even me, all right? you've got a dream, you've got to protect it. People can't do something themselves they want to tell you: you can't do it. You want something, go get it."
Yes exactly, I cannot agree more. We need to firstly set our dreams, and then protect them. In school, every book we read, every question we solve, and even every single defination or formula we learn, is indicating that we are taking further steps and are probably closer to our dreams. Therefore, don't ignore the little things we do in our daily lives. Don't think doing these is less significant than having a great dream. With these efforts, we are actually moving forward.
Well, maybe I talked too much. It is more than few lines already...Fine, that's all for this post, and good night to everyone.
Claim back or Not?
Conflicts are very common in our daily lives. Because different people are very likely to have different opinions on the same thing, when they cannot agree with each other, either explicitly or implicitly, conflict occurs. The kind of conflict I am going to illustrate is a very simple one and is inspired by my experience.
One day, my neighbor, who is also a friend of mine, borrowed one dollar from me for urgent use. However, after that, it seemed he forgot about this and did not give the one dollar back to me. Actually, I could see him every day since he was my neighbor, but I did not claim back my money because I did not know whether I should go for it or not. I was keeping asking myself: should I remind him of the story of the one dollar? Is it really necessary to ask my neighbor to return me such a small amount of money? If the answer is “yes”, how can I tell him? Will my words make him embarrassed? I felt difficult in making the decision. And I was not able to figure out a win-win solution. At last, I just gave up and let it go.
There was another similar case. Once, one of my best friends borrowed two dollars from me. After that, we did not meet each other for nearly one month. Later when we met casually in the campus, he also forgot about the two dollars he owed to me. This time, also, I did not claim back my money because, you know, it was just few minutes’ talk between two good friends and I felt really hard to open my mouth and mention about the “old story”, which occurred one month ago.
This kind of conflict, I believe, many people have experienced before. So when you were in this kind of situation, what would you do? If you decide to claim back your money, what would you say to your friend?
One day, my neighbor, who is also a friend of mine, borrowed one dollar from me for urgent use. However, after that, it seemed he forgot about this and did not give the one dollar back to me. Actually, I could see him every day since he was my neighbor, but I did not claim back my money because I did not know whether I should go for it or not. I was keeping asking myself: should I remind him of the story of the one dollar? Is it really necessary to ask my neighbor to return me such a small amount of money? If the answer is “yes”, how can I tell him? Will my words make him embarrassed? I felt difficult in making the decision. And I was not able to figure out a win-win solution. At last, I just gave up and let it go.
There was another similar case. Once, one of my best friends borrowed two dollars from me. After that, we did not meet each other for nearly one month. Later when we met casually in the campus, he also forgot about the two dollars he owed to me. This time, also, I did not claim back my money because, you know, it was just few minutes’ talk between two good friends and I felt really hard to open my mouth and mention about the “old story”, which occurred one month ago.
This kind of conflict, I believe, many people have experienced before. So when you were in this kind of situation, what would you do? If you decide to claim back your money, what would you say to your friend?
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