Interpersonal Communication essay

Interpersonal Communication essay

The ENG-128-308 class has been my best course in my entire schooling time. For all the semesters, I have been a student; this course has helped me grow and acquire more than I ever imagined. From the look at the course outline, one can easily assume the course to be ordinary. Still, it is elementary and significant not only for English as a subject but also as an essential element in establishing an individual’s communication skills and style. This course has taught me how to express myself, how to approach strangers, conflict handling, how to interpret other people’s communication styles, both verbal and non-verbal. Most importantly, I have learned how to communicate and understand other people better effectively. This course is entirely practical in helping me reach my goals.

Upon starting this course, I thought it would be as brief as its name. That is how it appears on the surface. However, I found out that the interpersonal communication and social media class had so much knowledge, especially on our interpersonal communication. Interpersonal communication was one of my experiences that showed how integrated this learning was. I realized that the interaction between two or more people has many features that most of the people are unaware of and break interpersonal communication ethics unknowingly or knowingly. It impacted my communication style, helping me to distinguish how much personal information I can disclose to what interpersonal relationships. For example, I realized that I have been so personal on my social media that I revealed much informational about myself. However, this course has equipped me with quality skills on how I can manage my interpersonal relationships with people.

The English course opened my mind to the perception of social media. I never thought of social media as a community. Even though social media is an electronic form of communication, it is a platform that enables people to create online communities allowing them to have mediated communication. Mediated channels enhance and sustain interpersonal relationships. For example, it provides a medium of face-to-face interaction. Therefore, technology plays a crucial role in facilitating interpersonal communication. The social media topic impacted my understanding of other users’ hyper-personal and disinhibited nature on online platforms. Initially, such happenings painted a different picture. ENG-128-308 has enhanced my “netiquette,” shaping me into a competent online communicator.

Impressions draw perceptions. Therefore, setting a relatively stable self-concept creates a good set of perceptions people hold about others. In a nutshell, impression management is an essential and fascinating experience this course develops in my career life. It is strategic communication management that aims at influencing other people’s perception of an individual. This is important and impactful to me in that it helped me in creating my own identity by managing my appearance, interactions with other people. The spontaneous behavior that we avail to others creates our identities; self-disclosure. Johari Window and penetration models exhaustively explained the self-disclosure ideology. Therefore, as a communicator, self-disclosure and identity concept has helped me learn how to present myself to people in a manner that maintains interpersonal communication and relationship.

The world offers different angles of looking at many things. People perceive things differently due to various factors; personal needs, bias, interest, and psychological makeup. An individual’s perception depends on how they select, organize, interpret and negotiate gathered information. Therefore, learning perception is important, especially in assigning behavior, to others. ENG-128-308 has impacted my communication style by developing my perception checking skills that help me in verifying other people’s actions; a challenge I had before this class. For example, empathizing with other people is a form of perception whereby the cognitive complexity helps to understand an issue from another person’s understanding.

Emotions: nonverbal reactions defined by cognitive interpretations that are signaled by internal physiological changes. Emotions are the most painful feelings people can deal with. Therefore, learning how to manage emotions is vital to individuals. Our personalities dictate much about how we express our feelings. I had little information on social rules and role, discouragement of expressing negative feelings. Learning about emotions has impacted my way of communication, given that my emotional vocabulary has expanded, creating an accommodative space for expressing mixed feelings. The text outlines the guidelines that help to know how and when to express emotions efficiently. For instance, under-expression of emotions can lead to sicknesses. Distinguishing between facilitative and debilitative feelings has helped me build my rational thinking, thus improving my effectiveness and confidence during communication.

For many years, I have been struggling with expression myself both in written and verbal. A language is a powerful tool that helps in telling much in a story. Weaving of words together to tell a story, expressing my cultural heritage, or narrate a scene was a difficult moment for me. English has taught me how to communicate marvelously, avoiding most interpersonal problems caused by language; as a barrier. Grasping English syntactic, semantics, and pragmatics has been my cornerstone for mastering the language.  For example, I had a problem with confusing facts with inferences or opinions that always caused interpersonal relationship problems. Language speaks much about people’s culture. Therefore, good command of language exerts a strong influence on other people’s perception of yourself. For instance, some societies value formality, while others value informality.

Nonverbal communication is the most sensitive way of communication, whereby competency is highly appreciated. This is communication through nonlinguistic means such as appearance, body movement, time, vocal characteristics, physical space, physical environment, and touch. Gender and culture are the most affected elements in nonverbal communication despite its universal behaviors. This type of communication reveals feelings and attitudes; best for expressing ideas. Nonverbal cues help in the detection of deception. Learning about nonverbal communication has improved my cautiousness of interpreting signals because of its ambiguity. It has also helped me change my style of contact with my friends, especially when passing a secret to each other; the use of body movements (gestures).

Listening is a communication process, the most common and overlooked form of communication. I did not realize that there was a difference between listening and hearing. Listening is the making sense of a message. It comprises of hearing, attending, understanding, responding, and remembering. I have been listening poorly in class unknowingly. However, with this knowledge, I have improved my listening skills, thus being able to reproduce during exams. Making premature judgments of the speaker’s ideas has been my most significant problem. Nevertheless, this class has equipped me with the necessary skills of effective communicators and considerations during the listening process.

Scrupulously, my ability to communicate and express myself with others has been enriched this semester. I have always had difficulties in both initiating a communication process and socializing coherently with most people, especially those not in my personal life. I remember my classmates referring to me as an introvert. However, I am grateful for this course that I am now among the topmost social and competent communicator in the class. This class has given me another perception of life, a new form that has transformed my interpersonal communication and relationships. I hope to learn more about effective communication in the coming semester to effectively sharpen my skills and use them in the “outside world.”