Hello ES 2007 groupies, please support by being part of the Singapore Book of Records and to pass on the word of acknowledgement..
You can just email me at siew_gsc515@hotmail.com the photos of the people you would like to acknowledge along with the message. Get your friends,family and relatives to join in this as well.
Spread the word. Do send me the photos asap yah. Preferably by 9th May 2009, as we need to develop the photos and piece them up.
You can find us on www.projectvibrantcolours2.com where you'll get to read more about what we do, who we are and also what are the upcoming events!! Many secondary schools, poly and Jcs are involved in this project right at this moment!!

Plus, we are raising funds to run this nation-wide service learning non-profit project, so if you or you know of anyone who can support us financially..be it $2 or $10 or $50, anything helps, please do let me know.

Our finale will be on 31st May 2009 @ VivoCity so do join us then to celebrate and acknowledge!

with love and passion,
Siew Cheng

Reflection Post

Three months plus have gone by ever since my first blog post for this module. Looking back at my first post, I’m very proud to say that I have gotten most of the things I have set off to achieve by taking this module. I think I have a better understanding of the value of effective communication skills and have since become a more effective communicator. I am now more clear and confident when writing a formal letter and when doing an oral presentation.

In addition, I have finally done up a good resume which I am very happy about. Furthermore, with the essential skills I have gotten in class and the “practice interview”, it increased my confidence level when I went for my actual job interview just a few days back. I am really glad to say that I got a job offered by the company because of the way I presented myself during the interview. The feedback I got from the boss of the company was that I “sold myself”. The position offered was a sales and marketing microbiologist. I am absolutely proud of my achievement. Really thank all my “interviewers” in class for the trial interview and all the feedback they have given me.

I think the oral presentation and group project report had been a truly memorable project as well. With Ariana and Min Huey as my group project partners, I had a really good time and learnt a lot from them. The report gave me the chance to learn about organisation skills and developed my persuasion skills as we had to convince our classmates of our proposed product. Also thanks to Ms Happy’s help, our group managed to twist the project report here and there such that it does not appear as shallow due to the lack of literature review.

In conclusion, I certainly had a great time during the classes. I have learnt a lot of communication skills like watching out for non-verbal cues, writing formal letters and resume effectively. In addition, to present myself confidently for a presentation and interview, in which, I believe will certainly be able to enhance my job experience in the near future.

*Thank you all Group 5 ES 2007S Classmates for the wonderful experience in class. :)

Open Topic

It has been 3 months since I have taken this module and has since gained many new insights in communicating effectively. Recently, along with some of my colleagues, we conducted several rounds of interview to look for suitable candidates for our newly set-up club.
During the interview, I applied what I learnt from class and realized that I have become more aware of the things that happen during a conversation. Take for example, the non-verbal cues that people give when they are talking. It tells a lot about the person just by looking at the way he or she presents herself or even the way he or she sits. I remembered clearly there was one girl who came in, sat down at the brim of the chair, had her legs closed, and was bending slightly lower than the rest. She spoke really soft. Overall, all of us who interviewed her picked up the cues quite strongly and thought she was not confident and was extremely nervous. There were many others who had different kind of cues as well, like shaking their legs vigorously or playing with their fingers. I think the shaking their legs cue was the funniest because the entire chair shook like as if there was someone shaking it using a lot of force.
Generally, I think I had become more conscious of body language which I think would really help at this point in time because I am going to go for many job interviews.
So, have you come across anything like this recently? Like picking up the different kinds of cues as people engage in the conversation. Please feel free to share any experiences here.

Cheers,
Siew Cheng

Biodata

Biodata:

Siew Cheng is currently an undergraduate in National University of Singapore(NUS) and will be graduating with a Bachelor of Science (Life Sciences) in May 2009. She is passionate about inspiring and empowering youths and she believe in loving them for who they are and celebrating for who they become, because each and everyone of them are special and unique in their way. Fueled by her passion for the youths, she organizes and participates in many not for profit projects for the youths. In addition, she took up many leadership positions to inspire and empower the people around her. Moreover, she has been actively involved in making a difference for the youths by facilitating with a premium leadership and character development company, The Absorbent Mind, since her studies in NUS.

Evaluating Intercultural Behaviour

Last year, I facilitated an exchange camp between Singapore and Thailand Secondary School students. It was certainly memorable as I got to observe loads of interesting cultural norms of the other country and got to work together with teachers from Thailand.
I especially remembered one incident where there was a huge misunderstanding that was caused by not understanding the other country’s culture.

The group I managed comprised of both Thai and Singaporean kids and I had a very playful boy from Singapore who was outcast by the entire group. The whole incident sparked off when this playful boy refused to sleep in the same direction as other boys. He instead chose to sleep with his legs facing the other boys’ head. Everyone in the room insisted him to shift but he just refused to do so hence they started arguing. It didn’t look like a problem to us but it was deemed as disrespectful and rude to the Thais. To them, they regard the head as the highest part of the body, both literally and figuratively hence we are not suppose to touch their head neither should we have our feet pointing at it. It was only after I explained it to him did he realized what he did was rude. Subsequently, he shifted his position.

Therefore, I think it will be good that we do some research and be sensitive about the culture of the country before we interact with the people from there so that we do not offend anyone at all.

The Email

Come participate in our Part 2 series of our lunchtime interactive workshops, brought to you exclusively by Facilitators@NUS!

We are a newly formed student organization that aims to enhance the learning experience of the NUS community through the framework of experiential learning. We have been trained by external trainers to plan and implement customized, insightful and dynamic training and development workshop which we hope to benefit the student organizations and individuals.

This series of lunchtime workshops will be conducted by our student facilitators through experiential games and peer discussions. Currently, these workshops are free. Come join us for a session of fun-filled learning and sharing!


Name: Knowing your Personality better
Date: 16 February 2009, Monday
Time: 12.15pm – 1.30pm
Venue: YIH Function Room 1 and 2
Know thyself better by understanding your priorities and your reactions to situations. In this workshop, we will conduct a personality test, followed by mutual sharing among participants. The discussion will explain the strengths and weaknesses of each behavioural style, and cover conflict management due to behavioural clashes from different perspectives.

Name: Interactive Learning Workshop
Date: 18 February 2009, Wednesday
Time: 1.00pm-2.00pm
Venue: Lecture Theatrette 2, Central Library
Have you ever considered that people’s differences in learning could be due to their differing learning styles? If you have, this workshop is right for you! Our main activities consist of a discussion based on a short story, followed by an introduction to the various learning styles. If you consider yourself as a serious thinker and enjoy having discussions with other intelligent minds, then join us for an interactive hourly session.


Due to limited vacancies for each workshop, participants will be registered based on a purely first come first served basis. So what are you waiting for? Sign up NOW!

Send an email to us at facilitators.nus@gmail.com by 15 February 2009 with your Name, Matriculation Number, HP contact number, Faculty and Year, Choice of Workshop(s) and we’ll be glad to attend to any queries that you have.

*** Do note that all sessions as indicated above are completely conducted and facilitated by NUS students. We do not intend for these sessions to be a lecture-styled monologue but rather, through the use of experiential games, these are platforms in which students can learn from each other in a friendly and cohesive environment.

The 7Cs
1. Is the opening courteous and is the tone appropriate?Yes
2. Have you stated the relevant information concretely?Yes
3. Is the email clear – whether you have used words and relational pattern of development that can be understood easily?Yes
4. Is the email concise?Yes
5. Is the email complete – whether you have conveyed all the necessary information to the person?Yes
6. Is the email coherent/cohesive in its sentence structure and organization of paragraphs?Yes
7. Is the language correctly used – no errors in usage, grammar, spelling & punctuation?Yes
8. Have you suggested any actions to be taken in the closing section?Yes

Analysis

I think the email is very concise and attention-grabbing. All the required information was stated in a very clear and coherent manner. They had a brief introduction of who they are and stated a concrete background that they have. The short summary of the activities they are conducting allow the readers to know what to expect and hence choose the one that they are most interested in. In addition, an action to be taken by readers who may be interested was also stated at the closing, with all the information stated in a rather detailed and clear manner. The different colours used were also chosen correctly and used appropriately to grab the attention of readers. Orange is a very loud colour, representing that the activity is going to be something really fun and interactive. Lastly, a disclaimer was placed at the end of the email also.

However, the email could have been written more effectively. They left out the salutation, the signature and sender’s name. To enhance the email, they could include those in. Furthermore, since the email was sent out by Office of Student Affairs, I felt that they should have also included the email was sent by OSA on behalf of Facilitators@NUS.

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

Yan is currently in a student organization that had just started up. As the vice president, the teacher advisor held high expectations of her. There are two vice presidents in the organization and each of them is responsible for different committee in the organization.

During a feedback session, the teacher advisor mentioned that the vice presidents had not been doing a lot of work. He said most of the work had been done by the president and during meetings, he only sees the president doing most of the talking. As one of the vice-president, Yan felt wronged as they have been working hard. She also thinks it is a matter of fact that the president speaks more during the meeting since he is the one chairing it and since the President is the one liaising with the teacher advisor, it may have appeared to him that only the president have been doing all the work. Yan is very sad and disappointed and has since lost her drive in managing the committee.

The teacher advisor has been very aggressive to the team and has not been very polite in his emails. All these had been affecting the entire team’s morale without him realizing it. Yan is feeling really frustrated and is worried about the team. I think it may be because the teacher advisor does not know the team enough hence causing these to happen. What should Yan do? Should she bring it up to the teacher advisor about the misunderstandings and should she bring it to his attention of his actions impact on the team?