Interpersonal Communication Skills: A Self-Reflective Report

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INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS
ASSESSMENT 4
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Table of Contents
Self reflection...................................................................................................................................3
References........................................................................................................................................6
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Self reflection
As my role in this scenario was of a career advisor that means it required a lot of skills and
qualities to communicate with the students because being career advisor, I have to interact with
different types of students and most students are confused as well about their future choices.
During the conversation with Nancy, I was ultimately able to understand the situation with
Nancy because of my experience with students, which made me able to analysis the confusion
she was struggling with her studies. There is nothing terrible than significant uncertainties about
the career, courses and practices for a student as well. It is essential to listen to those students
very carefully and with patience so that they will feel positive and relax while talking to the
person; otherwise, it would impact negatively on the students as well (Moore et al., 2018). Here I
want to mention one thing that my experience and communication skills made the tasks easy for
me, my jobs here I mean, talking with patients to the students and resolve their queries.
When Nancy first came to me, we both introduced very well to each other. I feel that first
impression matters and I didn't mean that by looks or dressing sense. I said for the instant
connection which we can create when we first meet with any person and being a career advisor,
and I completely understand the importance of this immediate connection thing with the students
(Moore et al., 2018). When I introduced myself to her, I tried to seem very comfortable and
welcoming so that she would feel comfortable talking to me. At the same time, it helped me to
let her open up, which is essential to make her easy to talk with me about her confusions.
I came to understand the importance of a few factors for making any conversations successful
such as body language and vocal tones etc. while interacting with Nancy; I used these two things
as my winning tools. I was very friendly and welcoming towards her, which helped her to make
comfortable to talk with me. As a career counsellor, it is one of my most important duties to
make my visitors feel comfortable so they will quickly open up about their doubts and
confusions as well and body language and posture plays a vital role in this. While talking about
the doubts with Nancy, the conversation made me realised that she wanted that someone listen to
her effectively because she seems a bright student and was beautifully confused about the
choices she made while picking up her courses and desperately want to change the directions
because she found her wholly annoying and wrong according to her future ambitions (Ladewig,
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2019). I was very careful when it comes to talk to her because her confusion was her biggest
problem and if I did not listen to what she wanted to share, she would probably not being able to
understand her problem because she will not be open up as well which would make her feel that
the complete session was a complete waste. So I was absorbing in listening while she was
sharing her doubts. My listening technique is that it makes the other person feel that it matter and
their problem matters as well (Ladewig, 2019). I used this technique on Nancy, and she was
easily open up about her confusions about the course, she was in.
Here one thing which I realised that I need to work on to improve that is my vocal tone, which
was sometimes not suitable according to my work. She was expressive enough that with her
vocal tone, I was significantly able to understand the tension of her from her vocal tone itself
which made me realise that vocal sounds play an essential role in expressing emotions as well
and as a career advisor, I have to adopt this technique while talking to my visitors (Xu et al.,
2015). The conversation with Nancy will be very helpful to me for improving my career as an
advisor because expressing what's in my mind, is most famous for making my work progress.
Communication skills are an essential part of my job, and as a career advisor, it is necessary that
my communication skills will be excellent so that I will be able to make my visitors feel
comfortable and open up with me (Beyaztas & Senemoglu, 2015). My job is to make them feel
good, relax and comfortable so that they will be quickly talking to me about their issues which
are getting stressful day by day and especially it is complicated when it comes to speaking to
students as well. Students are sometimes pretty confused about their career and other trends
because most of the time, the choices of their higher studies often get affected because of few
reasons such as friends are going to any particular college or course or the course is in trend or
the parents more often force them to pick up any of the specific directions for their further
studies. Later they started realising that the classes are not really that much of their uses or
interest or this course might not have enough scope in future. These thoughts made them confuse
and sometimes the situation gets worst in student life because they have debts and other
responsibilities as well, which made them depressed as well. So I completely understand the
importance of a career advisor profile (Beyaztas & Senemoglu, 2015).
Nancy has all those doubts in her head, too when she first started sharing those things with me.
During the whole conversation with her, I gave her my undivided attention, which was required
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to maintain the flow of the information as well (Kee et al., 2018). The main points which I felt
were useful to her that was because of my knowledge, so I would like to focus on the importance
of advance information to successfully participate in the conversations especially with the
students. I used my experience as my most useful skills in this conversation. My learning helped
me throughout the interview with Nancy, and I wanted to be helpful to her because she needs
that. I advised her many other available options which she can try.
My communication skills helped me to interact with deeper level with her. A conversation with
the students is not always straightforward. Sometimes it becomes complicated because students
got so confused that they would not be able to make them understand or what’s in their mind as
well. It happened few times interacting with Nancy though, but I made myself clear every time
which is an excellent technique of making the conversation enjoyable as well, and that is asking
questions while talking to people (Kee et al., 2018). This active participation is required to make
the conversation successful. First, it was conducive to me to understand what she meant, and
another thing is that it was helpful to make the speaker feel worthy.
Motivation would be a useful tool to make people easier with you while communicating. Using
this technique, I tried to motivate her and feel free to make choices about her career because after
all, it’s her career; it should be of her choice. My motivational skills helped me in that as well.
Overall the conversation with Nancy was excellent, informative and made me understand the
importance of effective communication techniques and tools as well for active participation in
the interviews (Kee et al., 2018).
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References
Moore, P. M., Rivera, S., Bravo‐Soto, G. A., Olivares, C., & Lawrie, T. A. (2018).
Communication skills training for healthcare professionals working with people who have
cancer. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (7).
Kee, J. W., Khoo, H. S., Lim, I., & Koh, M. Y. (2018). Communication skills in patient-doctor
interactions: learning from patient complaints. Health Professions Education, 4(2), 97-106.
Xu, S., Yang, H. H., MacLeod, J., & Zhu, S. (2019). Interpersonal communication competence
and digital citizenship among pre-service teachers in China’s teacher preparation
programs. Journal of Moral Education, 48(2), 179-198.
Beyaztas, D. I., & Senemoglu, N. (2015). Learning approaches to successful students and factors
affecting their learning approaches. Egitim ve Bilim, 40(179).
Ladewig, J., (2019). Body language: Its importance for communication with horses. Journal of
Veterinary Behavior, 29, 108-110.
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