Communication Evaluations

             This week, I took 3 evaluations on how I communicate. I enjoyed this assignment and am more aware about my communication anxieties, listening skills, and my verbal aggressiveness. Overall and for the most part, my results came out as I anticipated.

The first one was about my communication anxiety and basically how I feel about communicating with others. I generally do not enjoy public speaking but I am fine in small speaking experiences like in a meeting with my co-workers or family members. Basically I understand more how I really need to work on my public speaking anxieties if I ever want to be in a professional position where it is necessary (which is likely). My husband and co-workers also did a good job of pointing out these communication anxieties about me. Only Chris feels that I am more nervous about speaking than what I or anyone else estimated. I appreciate my husband’s honesty and my co-workers faith in me J

The second part was about my listening skills. One of the questions asked if I check the clock often while someone is speaking to me. This was an aspect of listening I had not thought about before. I usually do not look at the clock and rush someone unless I have somewhere important to go. I try to always listen to the people who come to me. I am more aware though of how important it is to be in the moment when someone is confiding or talking to me. Chris and my co-workers assessed me the exact same way I assessed myself on this evaluation. That was interesting! Glad to know they feel I am a good listener like how I imagine.

The last test was about verbal aggressiveness. This was one that my husband and co-workers also guessed the same as me. I have zero verbal aggressiveness. I very rarely try to attack someone’s character to persuade them or anything of that nature. I can’t think of a time that I have. Overall, it looks like I am pretty easy to pin down when it comes to my tendency to attack verbally. Maybe in some cases this type of communicating is what people need to do the right thing but I wouldn’t know because I don’t test it.

Since I enjoyed this assignment so much, Chris did the evaluations on him as well and found out more about himself. After this assignment, I am more conscientious about my communication and listening skills and how they affect my overall, daily communication skills with the children, families, and people in my life.

Effective communication with diverse groups

            The people in my workplace, neighborhood, and family are a diverse group of people. Each day I converse with these various people to get things done and convey vital messages. At work, I interact with young children, African American, Mexican, and Jewish teachers and staff. Some of my family members are married to people who are of African American descent and some family members are atheist. I have older family members and every one of my neighbors in a 4 block radius are from the baby boomers generation.   

            I speak to these people in different ways and in ways that help to convey my messages best. I use the different ranges of my tone of voice often when I speak to children. Children respond to my tone well so I use it according to what I am telling the children. When I want to show that I am disappointed in a child or let them know that they should do something a different way, my tone lowers. When I am playful, celebrating them, or explaining something, my tone is higher. I also use a more cheerful and higher tone of voice when I am speaking to people whom I want something from or are trying to be convincing; including my parents, boss, and husband lol! I don’t necessary speak to people according to the specific group they belong to. I speak to them according to the unique person they are and how they receive messages. Some of the older people in my neighborhood are very different and receive the same messages differently. The women on each side of my house are both over 65 and are widowed. One has an A type personality, is organized, and rarely breaks her routine. You can always find her watering her plants at 5 am and 8 pm each day it doesn’t rain. I love talking to her about home designing tips and decor. My communication style is more conservative with her. I am more of a B type personality and I love learning from her about home organization and other things that help make my life easier since I tend to struggle in that department. My other neighbor is more laid back and goes out on dates all the time. When I talk to her, I know she will laugh at jokes that are a bit unacceptable and I have more fun with her. I have always felt that I am an old soul at heart and relate to the older generation of people better than my own generation.

My friends are my co-workers and family. I relate to my co-teacher in many ways yet we are opposites. We both advocate for young children and seniors. She is African American in her 50’s and has been in the child care business over 3 times longer than I have. I appreciate her knowledge and feel comfortable confiding in her about my personal life. I can be laid back with her and because she understands me I don’t have to explain myself often when I am trying to convey a message. She gets me. She is a lot of fun and speaks up for herself often. I am more quiet and avoid conflict so I like being close to someone who speaks the truth so often without fear of the repercussions or reactions. I learn from her about how to speak up more and get what you want. Most of what I feel safe speaking to her about I do not feel safe speaking to my boss about. My boss is more serious and does not chit-chat much. I am more reserved and professional around her. Most of our conversations are during meetings and through emails about work. When I am with my aunts, uncles, and parents, my behavior and communication style is a little more reserved and respectful of their expectations of me. When I am with my cousins, we cut up a little more and anything goes. I speak more professionally to my colleagues and teachers. More of my passions and goals about myself, child care, and the early childhood field come out in my communications with my teachers and classmates. I make sure to write more professional and formal emails when writing to them. These conversations include more vital information and my choice of communication is crucial to conveying the message I wish to get across. My classmates, co-workers and teachers often use words that relate to early childhood that no other people in my life know about or use.

I use words and styles of communicating differently depending on the people I am communicating with. This can be complicated and I will always be learning about how to do this skillfully. Here are some strategies I use to communicate effectively with different people:

1.      Pay close attention to behavior and non-verbal cues. How often are people making eye-contact and what do they do with their arms?  If someone is not making eye contact with you then they are telling you they are not interested in what you have to say. If they are crossing their arms then they are showing that they are protecting themselves and are more reserved to the conversation or group of people they are around.

2.      Be knowledgeable of yourself and your preferred style of communicating. Ask yourself if your tendency to speak the truth no matter what is good during an introduction meeting with the new families in your classroom. While I am meeting my new families during open house, I make sure to let my usually more reserved personality come out more so they can get to know me better.

3.      Research any information about the people you are about to have crucial conversations with so you are best prepared. This helps to get through some of those initial basic misunderstandings one may have about a certain group so that the more important messages get addressed.

Anyone use these strategies already or have improvements? Do you think these are truly effective for you?

Body Language

                   In this blog post, I am going to share my thoughts on body language. I am going to watch a show that I am not familiar with while it is muted and then discuss my thoughts on how they used body language and eye contact to communicate. I will try to guess what their conversations were about based on only what I saw from them.

                  I watched the show The Tudors and had only watched a few episodes before I did this assignment. I am familiar with this history but do not know much about King Henry’s wives. It was very interesting looking at the characters movements while the volume was muted. The show I watched was about halfway through the series. This episode showed their wedding so I know that they are husband and wife in this episode. King Henry and his Queen Anne of Cleves are in this episode the most. It is obvious through the kings’ facial expressions that he does not like his new wife. He looks mad at times and disinterested in her. Anne’s facial expressions and shaking hands show that she is very nervous and made me think that she is scared of him. Maybe she thinks he will kill her. Their marriage looks very strained and full of discontentment. The King also bangs a table as he is talking to a room full of men showing anger towards them it looks like. The men look down and do make much eye contact with the King.

                    For the second part of this assignment I watched the show with the volume on and got clarity on my assumptions. My assumptions were mostly correct.  They were very unhappy with each other. The King was not attracted to her for many reasons. She was too uneducated about him to know how to make him happy so that explains her nervousness. She was German and they only married to get political favor. He was lied to about how happy he would be with her and he lashes out at his assistants. I’m sure that my assumptions would have been more correct had I been more familiar with this show and its history.

New class, new insights

This week I will be sharing someone whom I look to for advice and an example of how to communicate more effectively. 

                

                 The first person that comes to mind who uses effective communication is my mother. She is smart, funny and knows how to get her point across. She has always taught me new perspectives through her witty use of words. She gets me more than most people I know and that helps her to explain things to me in a way I understand. Unlike me, reading is big hobby of hers. It is because if this hobby that she has learned many words that most people don’t use or even know about. She has taught me these words and I hope I will learn to love the hobby of reading like she has. I almost always go to her for clarity on the things I struggle with. Honestly, I can surly count on her and my husband when I need advice.

                She is a professional who counts on her communication skills to lead her team at work. I look up to her as I grow professionally myself. I hope I can improve my effective communication skills to be as good as her as my conversations at work grow more crucial and important to achieving my goals for myself and the young children and families I serve. I am looking to her to guide me in my goal to become a better leader and communicator as needed in the early childhood field.