From our project presentation, my groupmates and I received numerous takeaways on our core topic ‘Active Listening’. Inevitably, an effective communication requires listening and the quality of listening will result to how much details are captured by the listener. Out of all the recommended topics given to us, the topic of ‘Active Listening’ caught our attention the most. We share the same thought that as a family member in our respective home, we are unable to spend time with them like we use to before our university life. It is a serious topic that deserves awareness to all our classmates and lecturers.

Today, our attention are often caught by modern technology, which results in less time speaking and listening to our family members. There are common listening barriers such as ego and status within the family that has been a hassle to listening among family members. Parents find it difficult to communicate with children and vice versa. To my team, the solution to tackle this lingering issue is active listening.

Active listening intentionally focuses on who you are listening to, whether in a group or one-on-one, in order to understand what he or she is saying. On our topic of ‘Active Listening To Resolving Conflicts At Home’, we covered that parents could not communicate with children well enough due to their incorrect listening method. Using the ‘LAFF Don’t CRY’ strategy taught by David McNaughton and Brooks R.Vostal, children will feel that they are being heard by their parents and their thoughts and opinion matters to them. In exchange, parents get to know more about their children’s lifestyle as they are more will to share. This useful strategy can not only to children but also to people around you, in order to portray signs of active listening.

‘When you talk, you are only repeating what you know; but when you listen, you learn something new.’ quoted by Dalai Lama. As a university student, we are unable to often spend time and listen to our family members due to our heavy workload. For me, the best solution is to find time to have a family bonding dinner with my family. It is when I could sit around and share my latest update in life and also listen to theirs. Because through active listening, I would be able to better understand they feel, and how I am still with them as part of the family.

In this project, I am able to apply what I had learnt in class and create a presentation that will absorb the audience’s attention throughout the presentation. The “5 W’s and 1 H” method beefs up my presentation with substances, allowing me to express my points with in-depth explanations and strong supporting evidence. Going through various kind of presentations, I noticed I had frequently fallen short on my explanations on my powerpoint slides. Till date, I am able to deliver my messages with confidence that my audience will receive sufficient takeaways from my presentation.

My group members and I went to the presentation with clear knowledge of our topic after staying up late to brush up our presentation slides. Due to insufficient rest, we did not perform to our expectation, though still performed adequately. For me, I tend to speak too quickly and this turns out to be a barrier to my audience’s understanding. From now on, I would try to speak a little slower and hopefully be able to articulate better before my next presentation. My fellow partners Syaifudin and Syahirah presented their respective parts well but with room for improvements.

On top of that, I also received other meaningful comments such as my lapse on the connection between the video and slides during the project presentation. I was working within the time constraint and failed to notice this costly mistake. I am truly disappointed with myself as a presentation veteran, who is usually much more careful managing the content of a presentation. Despite the mistake I made, it is a learning experience for me. Learning from the mistake I make will allow me to display even better for the next one. I will pay more attention to content linkage to avoid disconnection of content again.

In general, I felt that my group had picked an important topic that covers such an important topic ‘Active Listening’ that deserve awareness out of everybody. My group members and I have expressed concern as a university student, who are unable spend time with our family and listen to what they have in their mind. The only solution we can think of is to make time out of our busy schedule and gather fo a family bonding session. This is when we can actively listen to them and let them know our own latest update in our school life.

In the topic of ‘Active Listening’, I learnt that there are diverse styles of listening. Some of the styles of listening are content-oriented, time-oriented, people-oriented and action-oriented. In school or at home, we will definitely meet people with different styles of listening. In order to better transmit our message to them, tuning our message based on their listening style may lead to better understanding to the listener. 

Interpersonal communication is about effective and efficient interaction with understanding. From the presentation, I noticed my own flaws and received invaluable feedbacks from my peers. “All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes” once said by Winston Churchill. With the experience and knowledge gained on this project, I have confidence that my groupmates and I would be able to perform even better in our future presentations.

Last Updated: 19th April 2016

 

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Rati Shukla, Marcus Yeo, Syaifudin