Having come to the final lesson, our hearts were a little heavy because there have been no lessons like this module. We began with a short Q & A session to clarify any last-minute doubts on the reflective journal and kicked off the day with some warm-ups. Pretending to an animal, then running and hopping around the class was pretty fun and I really felt this type of physical activities would help me a lot more to release my tension and relax my voice. As we progressed with the other games like catching and so on, I could not help but notice everyone else becoming really engaged like never before. As I looked upon the behaviours of people, I realised that this body language meant that everyone really felt like communicating more.
Body language is a universal, non-verbal communication where we convey signals to the recipient without speaking and accounts for more than 50% of all communication. The signals can come from our facial expressions, how we look at other people, whether our lips are turned up or turned down, whether our palms are facing up or down, how we open up our arms and legs, our posture while we sit or stand and even how close we are standing to each other. It may sound complex, but we tend to subconsciously pick up the signals and react accordingly (Cherry, 2018). It would be something really useful to me as I often encounter situations which I wanted to be a part of but have no idea how to start. Now that I am aware enough to give off signals of openness, it should make it easier for other people to accept me in the conversation and interact more with me.
With our energy levels elevated by the games we played, we soon moved on to the presentation. It was unique, as everyone was presented with a small Steve Jobs sticker while Ignatius started off by remembering the 7th year and 26th day anniversary of Steve Job’s death. I thought it was a little weird as the mood became somewhat awkward with the mention of his death because it could be phrased better, but my concerns were soon displaced as Steve Jobs was adequately reintroduced with mentions of his greatest achievements.
The key things to take note of was always mentioned in groups of 3, a method utilised by Steve Jobs and this fact was made used of brilliantly. The presentation helped as well because there were lots of pictures of Steve Jobs doing all sorts of stuff that they were describing throughout the presentation.
I learned here how the right choice of words could help dramatically in the presentation and the setting of the mood, like how Steve Jobs described the iPad from ‘just xx thick’ to ‘super thin’. Along with how the nexus of Steve’s take-home message is compressed within 140 words to fit a tweet, these are very important but yet easy to miss points that were brought up. The presentation was easy on the ears overall and successfully implemented all the great tips that came from Steve Jobs!
Finally, the last activity of the day was to commence with the balloon debate. It is where we take a famous person and argue over who should stay in the safety of the balloon because the balloon is sinking over the hungry shark-infested sea. In short, we have to win over the audience to win the spot in the balloon and move on to the next stage. I was lucky to be in the first and final group to actually try out the balloon debate in class. The key to the balloon debate was to be active and constantly participate in the debate as the famous person we have chosen. Our group consist of Shawn, Hadi, Ian, Wei Suen and me, which was great as Shawn and Ian got the ball rolling for the rest of us who weren’t sure where to start.
Wei Suen who picked the artist Van Gogh was the first to get off the balloon because she was not able to make any claim at all as to why Van Gogh should stay in the balloon. As the debate went on, Shawn got booted out next followed by Hadi while they got confused as to my claim as Nikola Tesla who can remove all the advanced form of technology in the world. I quickly realised that what we say did not have to be valid, but the key was to constantly make any point at all and maintain active. I eventually triumphed over Ian, who could not make a stronger sense logically over any of my claims! It was unexpected but a fun activity that will definitely stay in my memory for sure!
A final photo of our Wednesday 1230-1530 class (unfortunately without Ryan)
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