Studying in CG1413, I can develop my communication and teamwork skills by being in team with people from different cultures. Therefore, I could recognize my weaknesses and then tried to make improvements. Reviewing the two projects I have just done, I would like to evaluate my own performance base on the following criteria:
- Contribution to the projects
- Listening actively to other members
- Working harmoniously in a multicultural team
- Resolving conflicts

It is very difficult to do something that you do not have passion on it. I have to admit that I feel more passionate doing the CG1102 than the CG1413 project. That is the reason why my contribution to the two projects is unequal. In CG1102, I discussed actively, tried to give ideas and kept thinking about the project after the meeting. On the other hand, lack of interest doing the CG1413 project in the beginning, I just tried to finish what I was asked to do without the willingness to give more inputs to the project. I just felt more interesting in this when it was near to the presentation. Therefore, I would like to apologize my CG1413 teammates for not being a good team member.

In every discussion, it is not good if I appear unattentive while people are presenting their ideas. Therefore, I tried to implement what I learnt about listening actively to encourage my teammates in giving their ideas to the discussion.

This semester I had chances to work in a multicultural team so that I can apply what I was taught about intercultural communication in real life. In spite of differences in languages, cultures and working styles, I managed to work harmoniously with my teammates. Although English barrier is a big problem preventing me from communicating actively with other teammates at first, I tried my best to improve my skills so that my English is no longer a problem towards the end of the semester.

Resolving conflicts is one of the important skills in teamwork. However, fortunately, there are no conflicts arising in my team in this semester. Although I do not have chances to resolve any conflicts, I hope that I will be able to do so in the future base on what I learnt in this module.

Finally, after studying module CG1413, I learnt so many useful skills for communicating and working in team. To all my friends, I would like to say thank you for having a good time working together, I hope we will have chances to work together in the future.

Reflection on the Oral Presentation 2

Reflecting after each presentation is the best way to figure out my good points as well as bad points that need some improvements. Below are the criteria that I want to achieve:

1. Be clear with the content

2. Speaking volume and pronunciation

3. Confidence

4. Maintain the eye contact

5. Use appropriate gesture

6. The cohesiveness within the team

7. Be able to answer the question

By preparing the slides and the scripts carefully for the presentation, the content was clear enough for everyone to understand. The introduction was provided to let people know what I was talking about. Furthermore, the transitions from one part to another were also included so that everyone can follow easily.

After 3 times rehearsing before the presentation, I looked more confident comparing to the last time. However, the nervousness was still a big issue. It resulted in having no smile and shaking many times throughout the presentation. More effort should be made to control the nervousness so that my posture can be better in the future presentation.

The speaking volume was well-adjusted and the pronunciation on the whole was clear except for sometimes stuttering and hesitating due to the nervousness. These improvements made my verbal delivery clear so that everyone could understand. Although I tried to adjust the tone to emphasize some parts, I did not do it very well. More practice will be needed to improve it in the future.

For the non-verbal cues, I also made some improvements comparing to the last oral presentation. The eye contact was maintained and there was no distracting gesture throughout the presentation.

Another good point in the presentation is that the cohesiveness within the team was very good. We dress formally for the presentation. Furthermore, the transition between two speakers was smooth.

However, I did not perform well in the Q&A session by being inactive in answering the question. Although we could politely answer all the questions, I should be more active by giving answers or supporting ideas for other teammates.

Reviewing the posts

First of all, I would like to thank you for spending time reading and commenting my blog. Most of your comments are very useful to me. In the first two posts, the topics were about the teamwork and intercultural communication. They were quite weird to me at that time because I had never been in such a multi-cultural environment before and I just had a few experiences working in team when I was in high school. Before taking this course, I still kept in mind that working individually is more effective and efficient than working in team. Therefore, my first post was just base on my knowledge from the book and from searching Google. By reading your comments as well as your posts of the same topic, I realized the importance of teamwork in solving problems.

On the second post, you were more critical reading my post so that you can point out some errors in it. I have to make a special thank to Juncheng who reminded me about the factual error. I would be more careful about giving example in the future post. Many people reminded me about the grammar errors, I have to make a special effort to avoid this error.

My third post was about resolving conflicts. In my opinion, sharing my own story and reading people’s comments would be a good way to find out how to resolve such a situation in the future. Most of the comments were very useful. You advised me to remain calm during the presentation and then we should sit down and resolve the conflict between me and my friend. That would be the best choice to maintain a good relationship. I think I will do this if there are any conflicts in my team in the future.

The last post is the reflection on the first project meeting. In this post, I was fail to reflect my own performance and also forgot to post the video for every to have something to evaluate and give more constructive comments. According to the advices, I should overcome the shyness and feel free to ask any question for clarification whenever needed and practice speaking English to be clear when I describe my ideas. Moreover, in the future reflections, I have to describe specifically my performance as well as my flaws so that I can improve on it.

Once again, I would like to say thank you for helping me improve myself by giving constructive comments on my blog. I will try my best to make some improvements on it.

Reflection on the CG1102 second meeting

My teammates, Juncheng and Nitika, said that I performed well on the second meeting and there were just a few things to criticize me so that we should showed the appreciation on the reflection. However, I thought that they were so nice to me and I had to critically reflect myself again so that I could figure out some points to improve for the next meeting. I would like to use the criteria that my team used to evaluate my performance:

· Well prepared for the meeting

· Courteous

· Committed

· Critical

· Open to suggestions

It is true that I made some improvements comparing to the last meeting. I participated actively in the discussion although my speech was still unclear and not fluent enough which caused difficulty for other members to understand my ideas. This time I overcame the shyness and was willing to voiced out my ideas and asked for clarification whenever needed.

However, when other teammates were speaking, I did not maintain the eye contacts although the sitting position was very convenient to do that. I kept looking at the paper without any non verbal cues. Moreover, the facial expression was not so good. I seemed like being in an argument with an unhappy face most of the meeting time. Nevertheless, these flaws did not repeat when I was speaking – the eye contact was maintained and I also smiled sometimes when I saw the agreement from other members.

On the whole, I did better than the last time although there were some points that I need to take note of. Maintaining eye contact, making facial expression and practicing speaking clearly were the main points that he need to improve for the future discussion.

Reflection on the CG1102 project meeting

Our CG1102 team has the first meeting on last Friday at COM1. The agenda for the meeting was sent to us few days ago so that we could be well-prepared for the meeting. There was no tutorial room without any students at that time because we were afraid of disturbing other people. Therefore, we could only choose a place that as less people as posible although we cannot sit face to face with each other.

This is the video of our meeting: http://vimeo.com/9430351

As the person who began in the meeting, I think I did not explained well to my teammates because I did not speak fluently enough and my voice was not clear so that it made my teammates be a little bit confuse with my idea. Although all of us were still confused about what we were going to do, every member in the team had already prepared for the meeting so that the ideas were come up with very fast. In addition, we also discussed with each other about the topic so that it become more clear. Generally, we agree with other ideas. However, there were some points that I did not agree with them so that I usually spent time to think the way to persuade them or ask for clarification which slowed the process. Moreover, everyone was always trying to protect their own idea at first. Fortunately, at the end of the meeting we were clear about the topic and equally divide the tasks for each member in team. However, we also asked our tutor for some clarification about the topic and to be sure that we we were going on the right way.

In general, this is a successful meeting because we could finish all the tasks listed in the agenda, be more clear about the project and discuss a good way to do. However, there are some points that we need to improve for the next meeting so that we can work effectively and efficiently with each other.

Was I right or wrong?

When people come together to work in a team, conflict is one of the biggest problems that they have to avoid. The differences in the background, character or the way to do the tasks are some main sources of conflicts. Team leader and members who face such problems have to find the way to resolve it as soon as possible. I used to work in a team before and be one of the members involved in a conflict. I am still wondering whether I was right or wrong when I resolved the conflict like that

That was a large history project two years ago. We had to present about the most terrible war of humankind. There was one more day to prepare for the presentation but Chau, who was in charge of finding the war map for my presentation, did not send the map to Son, the team leader, to put to the powerpoint file. Unfortunately, there was also an exam on the presentation day and our team leader did not prepare well for this. At the night before the presentation, although Chau and I struggled finding the map but Son did not appear to receive it. Therefore, my presentation was not as good as I suppose because I could not demonstrate the battle more lively and clearly.

At that time I hated him so much and I just wanted to scold him for being lazy and irresponsible. However, the presentation would continued the following week so I chose to be quiet to avoid a fight within the team. My choice was not as easy as I think, I was angry so much that cannot refrain from complaining with other friends about his fault behind his back. Other people in my team especially Chau agree with me about Son and they also angry with him about that. However, I knew I acted badly but I thought it was the best way to avoid conflicting.

That is a small story I would like to share and hear your advice. We are going to work together for the whole semester so that it is very good to share experience with each other about resolving conflict that may happen.

Observation of team behaviour: Intercultural and Interpersonal Communication

As a result of globalization and development of technology especially in communication, we have chances to work with people from different countries and different cultures. Communicating effectively with them is a big challenge that we have to deal with.

If you want to communicate with people from different country, you have to learn about their culture: greeting, having meal, nonverbal action, etc. It does not mean you have to act like them, but you need to understand what is appreciated and what should not do. For example, it is considered to be impolite making noise when you have dinner in a western family but it is the way Chinese people express the deliciousness. Another example is that when you should not make beef steak for the Indian or pork stew for the Muslim. Learning a new culture could be difficult but it is very important to have make a good impression on other people.

Studying in Singapore - a multicultural country - offer me chances to be friend with many people especially Indian, Chinese and Malay but it also a big challenge. The difficulty not only come from languages - we are not speaking our mother tongue but English - but also from the diversity of culture. Luckily, everyone in Singapore respect other cultures that make me feel more comfortable. My team, C04C is a combination of three people from three different culture: Vietnamese, Chinese and Indian. To work harmoniously with them, I have to learn about their culture especially their way of thinking, gesture or the use of time. By understanding each other, we can be good friends and achieve in this semester.

"To the world you might be one person, but to one person, you might be the world.
Kindness is the golden chain by which our world is bound together."
Johanne von Goethe

Communication and teamwork: why are they important for me?

Communication is undoubtedly one of the most essential activities in life of all species. Humankind, through ages, has overcome many changes since the first picture was carved on the wall of the cave to nowadays when people can communicate with each other no matter how far they are.

For some animals, communication is the basic instinct which help them find the food or protect themselves from danger. For human, communication is at a higher level. It makes people know about each other, solve a problem together or express the emotion. Beside languages and gesture, the basic means of communication, modern people have mobile phone, fax or internet to contact to each other. The development of technology not only makes the communication become easier but also more complicated. It is no longer a basic instinct that people were born to have. It is what we have to learn. Good communication can help us make friend with others, solve the problem faster and save time.

Teamwork is a high level communication. There are many problems that can only be solved by many people working together. Therefore, teamwork plays an important role in the effectiveness of a team. Good teamwork means there are an understanding among the members and between the leader and the members. If a team has a good leader, each member solves a part of a problem without any conflicts, the problem can be solved very fast and effective. Bad teamwork can cost time and cause disagreement among the team.

Communication and teamwork are very important in studying and working. They can get the job done fast and effective. A good communication and teamwork skill can be a key to the success.