The day it all began................... It is hard to believe that it ended soon!!!!

I came late as I was still figuring out the venue of our sectional teaching class of ES2007S. Finally, while figuring the venue, I entered the class. Everyone was busy calling for others, exchanging places and so on. I was confused. "Was it the right class I entered?", I thought. Brad , our coordinator, gave me a smile and asked to join two girls sitting at the side. They were none other than our classmates: ALICIA and YUEN MAY. Immediately we were asked to figure out likes and dislikes of other people by approaching them and asking and communicating effectively. The class ended with discussion upon what we would be doing throughout the semester. The "fun of communication" began and since then I have been learning each and every aspect of how to communicate effectively with others. Now, I am very pleased to have gain some of the important skills of "Professional Communication". This "practical" module gave me an opportunity to really express myself in front of our peers and improve the important ability of speech, blogging, research,presentation and most importantly, team work.

Improving skills of Interaction and Speech along with Analyzing abilities:

Throughout the semester, the emphasis was always upon to interact with others, listen what others are speaking and express your views regarding the topic. From day 2 , we had been given specific circumstances and then interact and express yourself effectively about that topic. This really helped to analyze the situation, come up with positive arguments and then speak out in a well organized way so that everybody listening understands your point and even accept it, while being a valid point. It was also helpful in a way of eliminating elements of fearfulness and being shy to speak in front of classmates. This laid the strong foundation of effective communication and forthcoming presentations.

Blogging and Writing:

This module gave us an opportunity to learn the art of effective writing, especially blog writing, in terms of 7Cs. Critically thinking and then following these 7Cs to write a blog post according to the topic given really improved my abilities to produce my work concisely to the point, covering all aspects about the topic and writing without any grammatical errors. The research proposal helped to put all effort to write a reflective proposal in terms of content, data analysis and giving it a very professional outlook in terms of writing.

Peer Teaching and Proposal Presentation:

Peer teaching session was an another positive and useful element of this course. We had been assigned peer group of 3 or 4 from day 1 and were given topics to teach our fellow classmates. It was the first "official" kind of presentation in the class hence, our group worked hard to produce an exhaustive teaching material and present it well in front of them. I learned not only how to write an effective resume/application letter but also how to teach a topic in a professional, impressive way to others. Peer teaching sessions of other groups taught us several other topics of maintaining wiki, conducting interviews , etc. This was the basis of how we would be using these elements while completing our research project.
Finally, after completing our research proposal ,we had to present it in order to convince our classmates regarding our proposal. I learnt how to engage people, explaining each and every aspect of our proposal and maintain a good professional presentation.

Getting along as a team:

This was one of the important aspect that this module taught me, how to work as team and help each and every one of us, how to divide tasks and at the same time be flexible. From peer teaching to final proposal presentation, even feedbacks of blog posts, I learnt the importance of motivation to complete the task and discussion about the problems and topics related in detail. Thanks to our group mates Elgin, Yuen May and Nanhai that we successfully completed an impressive proposal which was the result of hard work of our group.

Conclusion:

I am really pleased to have completed such an interactive learning module ES2007S. It is one of the most memorable module I have studied so far. I can feel the practical implications of this module upon myself. I improved not only my speaking ability but also I got rid off issues such as: nervousness to speak in public and inability to project voice. I learned to work in a team and how to develop a problem solving approach. Blogging and writing skills were improved exponentially by just following the concept of 7Cs. One of the most valuable thing that this module has given to me is the art of resume writing. I got offer from two companies regarding internship and I give my credit to Brad for imparting such skills in me to write an effective resume and handle an interview session. I am really honored to be part of such a fun , intuitive and learning module. I would like to thank Mr. Brad Blackstone to make this module such an innovative one and also supporting us with feedbacks and suggestions to improve in fields where we are weak. Thanks to everybody and it was nice to meet and know my peers.