Developing effective communication skills is important to me as it helps me widen my current social networks, create new networks and it also enables me to understand others more effectively.
Friends play an important role in ones life, and I am of course not an exception. It is often easier if you can share some common interests and exchange ideas on an interesting topic when you want to make a friend and know more about a person. Here we need some skills like how to initiate a conversation, how to interest people in your area of interest and how to listen attentively and ask relevant questions etc.
In creating new networks, people need to know how to make use of the current network and develop new networks from that. The power of one man is limited. We have friends; our friends also have their friends. When one needs help, we should never restrict ourselves within the small networks that we have. We can always outsource from friends’ network or perhaps get to know new friends who are not at all linked to us. This seems quite difficult. However, if we can consciously develop our network, we can easily find somebody to help when the need arises.
Lastly, understanding others, sometimes, could be a difficult task. There are many communication barriers when it comes to dealing with people from different backgrounds. These differences could range from culture, religion, gender to personal traits. Here, we need to have some basic understandings with regards to the people we are dealing with. Also, we have to take note of the ways they communicate with us, such as gestures, actions and tones which may be very different from what we think or what we expect.
It is always easier to say than done. If we could stick to the skills of communication in our daily life, our lives would definitely be easier than before.
6 comments:
Hi Liu Ning, there was clarity in your post as a main idea was expressed in each paragraph and the main idea to the readers was that effective communication skills help extend our networks which in turn help expedite one’s work processes.
However, there were some errors that distracted me from your post and I have corrected them here:
- Friends play an important role in one’s life. (There should be an apostrophe.)
- It is often easier if you happen to share common interests and exchange ideas on an interesting topic when you want to befriend someone. (From second paragraph)
- The last word from the first sentence in the third paragraph should be “there” instead of “that”.
- Towards the last part of paragraph 3, perhaps the idea can be expressed in this manner: Developing new network may seem difficult but with conscious effort, we may be able to find the right person to help when the need arise.
- From paragraph 4, sentence 1: Lastly, we may face difficulties understanding others at times.
- From paragraph 5, it is always easier said than done.
Yes, what you have said is true. At a glance, the lingua franca of the society is used to make a person’s intentions known and to enable him to understand others, as well as being able piercing cultural and emotional barriers.
By developing effective communication skills, we are then able to evaluate the value of another person’s perspective, and weighing it against our own ideas, ultimately deciding which is the better alternative.
In short, coherence is the thing that is difficult to develop, and through this course I believe that we can achieve the common goal, which is to gain effective communication skills. :D
Hi there! The paragraph that you wrote about how a person's gender, culture may affect effective communication is somewhat rather intriguing to me.
Remember the time that we had a conversation within the group about dog meat consumption in China? I have to admit that I did not understand the chinese people's culture well enough before I discussed with you about that issue. On top of that, I also had a pre-constructed mentality of the whole issue that was tinted with emotions. However, I was glad that as the conversation progressed, we were able to identify these barriers that were impeding effective communication between us and rectified them before the matter worsened. :)
Well written post!
Having a network of friends at work or outside work is important but the quality of the relationship is important too. You must establish that you are somebody who is reliable, trustworthy and a person who acts in good faith. A history of good communication will make your friends feel secure in their relations with you.
Teacher- Fiona
Hey Liu Ning, I agree that developing effective communication skills is important as it helps everybody to widen their current social networks, create new networks and it also enables them to understand others more effectively.But its important that one knows how to communicate in the right manner cause sometimes being too expressive can have adverse effects on one's social network ....What may be effective communication to you may not be effective communication to the one you are expressing to. Thus sometimes knowing the norms of effective communication instead of just simply thinking that you are effectively communicating when you are expressing yourself is important. But such skills are difficult to obtain when your background is primitive and the people at home do not express effectively.
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