Communications Question

reply to 6 students – 90 words each

1. Evaluating Interpersonal Communication Skills
A. Communication plays a huge part in both my personal and professional lives. I cannot think of a day
that I did not have the need to communicate, I even sometimes talk in my sleep, according to my wife.
As such, I try my very best to sharpen my communication skill to better myself on all facets of my life.
From feedbacks that I get from others is that I am a good listener and that I articulate myself very well.
I always try to be an active listener so that I can fully grasp what is been said. I tend to pay attention to
my nonverbal cues as well to make sure I am not sending the wrong message, such as my facial
expressions and body language. Floyd (2020), wrote, “Self-monitoring certainly has its advantages.
High self-monitors tend to be better at making whatever kind of impression they want to make, because
they are aware of their behaviors and of others’ responses to them.” (p. 80).
One of the biggest weakness I have when it comes to communication is that when I get too excited
sometimes, my speech pace becomes quite rapid which when combined with my accent may make it
hard for others to understand me. I am aware of this and try my best to pause as I speak to make sure I
slow my speech pace as well as annunciate my words better.
Three goals that I want to develop or at least improve on are; not getting too distracted by external
influences when I communicate, focusing more on the audience to pick up on their nonverbal cues, and
lastly limiting my self-monitoring as it can sometimes be distracting to my audience. Floyd (2020)
further wrote, “On the positive side, low self-monitors spend less time and energy thinking about their
appearance and behavior, so they are probably more relaxed than high self-monitors in many
situations.” (p. 80).
B. In regards to interpersonal communication skills I believe that I am quite well equipped with tools to
communicate. I have a strong ability to have active listening this involves being fully present and
attentive to the person speaking, and responding appropriately to what they are saying. Empathy is also
very important being the ability to understand and relate to other people’s feelings and perspectives, and
communicate in a way that demonstrates this understanding. Clarity is something that I use to express
myself clearly and effectively, using language that is easy to understand and conveys the intended
message.
All this being said though, I do have the ability to know where my faults lie. I normally have the
control over a conversation so I have the tendency to interrupt. Interrupting others can be perceived as
disrespectful and can prevent effective communication from taking place. There are times as well that I
fail to establish rapport because I rush into a conversation. Building rapport is essential for creating a
sense of trust and understanding between two people. Struggling to establish rapport sometimes makes
it difficult to connect with others.
Knowing these faults makes it clear as to what I need to work on for the du ration of this class and
beyond. I will make it a goal to be more cognizant of when I’m interrupting during communication. I
will do this by slowing down and not making it a point to control the conversation. I will also look to
better myself and building rapport so that I can gain the most out of the encounter for both parties
involved. Doing all of these with a combination of also working on honing my empathy skills, I believe
will be the most beneficial in the future.
C. My strengths in interpersonal communication very. I would say that I am good at being able to pick up
on facial expressions and body language from others when communicating. This helps me send and
receive messages when speaking to someone. I have been working with students that speak little to no
English. By picking up on their body language and facial expressions I can better understand their
feelings when I might not understand what they are saying to me.
I am not the best at communicating in “channel-lean contexts” like over text message. I find that its not
easy to sound sincere or genuine over text message. I often am not able to get my feelings out
adequately. Also, it is hard for me to understand how someone is saying something. It is hard to know
in what context a person is meaning something like sarcasm for example. I am definitely a better faceto-face communicator.
Working on the way I communicate over text message over the next 6 months will help my
interpersonal communication skills drastically. Practicing using emojis and more sympathetic language
with help the receiver of my messages better understand what I am saying. Practicing sending messages
to my husband and eldest son will help me to become a better communicator.
2. Learning Communication from Others
A. After much thought, I do think that the person in my life who communicates the best has to be my wife.
Seeing many different sides of her personality both behind closed doors and formal meetings, I can
observe how she conveys information based on specific settings and what to say to certain people
when. Her writing for a job posting, editorial, or even just texting someone, all seems as though it is a
work of art that is crafted specifically for the person. My wife talks on her feet. Staying flexible and
sharp to pick up on social cues and rules enables her to either say the right thing or recover from a
situation where an “open mouth, insert foot” scenario belongs. Valuing face to face conversations and
using technology to fill gaps in what words cannot describe clearly communi cates ideas, thoughts,
hopes, and dreams. Mindfulness and fluency are second nature compared to her speaking ability.
We did long distance for a long time, and it was difficult to maintain at first. Not because of her, but
because of my own inability to remain as persistent as her. Creating and fostering a context and
relationship needed for the level of interpersonal communication needed to grow what we wanted was
not easy, but doable through continuous engagement and involvement with each o ther’s lives. Treating
each other as benefactors and advocates to our lives and keeping each other cued in where logically it
would not make sense paved the way for where our relationship is, despite not having too much in
common in the way of hobbies.
B. My husband is an effective communicator. He is good at interpersonal perception. I find that when we
are having conversations with a small group of people, he is able to pick up on things in our
environment that I would not necessarily notice. He is able to apply his perception of the environment
to relate to what others by the way he interprets his surroundings.
I would say that my husband uses the skill of interpretation effectively. By using what he can interpret
of people’s behavior and his experiences he is good at sorting and organizing information to determine
what people are communicating. This is a skill that I defiantly need to work on.
I can learn a lot from my husband’s styles of interpersonal perception and interpretation. First, I need to
be more aware of my environment. Paying attention to what’s going on around me is probably where I
need to start. Also, I need to select information that should get my attention. I was just at a volleyball
game for my niece, and I should have been listening to what conversations were being had around me.
A woman was upset that my son was jumping in front of her view, and I was not listing to anything
other than the game. Luckly, my husband does listen and overheard her telling her daughter and my
husband had our son sit down.
C. Nolan P. is an outstanding communicator and mentor in my life. He constantly emulates everything I
wish to be in a communicator. I think what he does most effectively is repeat whatever I said in a
different way so I can be sure he understands the message I am trying to get across. In doing so, it also
gives me an opportunity to ensure I know what I am trying to say. That is the one that they constantly
use and I am working on getting better at using myself. Something else they will do very well is show a
lot of empathy in what I am saying. They will connect whatever I am saying to something else going on
or that has happened in their lives so that I know that he understands what I am saying and feeling. It
helps me communicate better knowing that someone else knows what I am dealing with. I definitely try
to use this in my day to day as well as I feel like people are much more open to talking more when they
know you are on the same page as them. I am learning that that is the best way to rea ch positive,
impactful communication!