Reflective Essay on Academic and Professional Communication Skills Development

The main purpose of this reflective writing is to focus on my overall performance, behaviour and experiences of different things in different situations. Here I will explain what I learned from the module lectures, discovering different things in my terms of understanding and how can I use those in my present and future for facing all the academic challenges with new innovative and organised ideas to have a successful academic journey. The primary focus of this essay is reflecting on my development process from the initial stage till the end of the module lectures.

In the week one lecture, I learned that well-developed and efficient communication skills whether in academic sector or in professional sector are vital to each and every child's academic & later on professional success. At all the levels of education, students required to must be able to communicate effectively in primarily in their academic field and after that in their professional field. Without well-developed communication skills, children can have the risk of falling behind among other students in their peers or becoming emotionally overwhelmed or withdrawn at their school environment (Kaplonyi et al. 2017). If any student stutters or mumbles on their own then they might become fearful of speaking up in class and this in turn can lead to lowered grades and diminished self-esteem and later on this will continue to their professional life also where they will not be able to communicate or reciprocate to their superiors, colleagues or juniors which is quite disturbing for them and bad for their organisation where they work also (Claro et al. 2018). There are some similarities along with some dissimilarity in the academic and professional communication skills.

In second week lectures the target was on academic communication mainly involves the presenting of ideas effectively and formally in a scholastic educational environment. As per Chalkiadaki (2018) if a student attends an institution of higher education, they can use those skills to contribute to their academic conversation with your teachers, mates and peers. Being a student of an academic culture, one must be well aware of the basic skills like advanced vocabulary, proper grammar, reading comprehension and verbal expression, all of these will be helpful in the whole educational environment and after that too (Odinokaya et al. 2019). During the academic period, one will ultimately learn how to talk, write & behave in a formal academic tone and how to politely address the reader or listener, whether he/she is a professor, classmate or any peer. As per Latimer (2018) in addition to the developing high-level communication skills, one must also learn about some other academy-specific topic-relevant skills such as how to write book reviews, research papers and laboratory reports, how to formulate a thesis or academic argument etc. In such situation, the academic communication can be referred as the methods in which all the ideas are distributed among scholars or students equally (Jones et al. 2017). The academic institutions must also keep up with the advanced changing technology and might alter their policies accordingly to ensure a fair access to academic resources for everybody. They need to adapt some new forms of academic communication like use of e-mail to communicate with instructors or the need to cite online articles (Odinokaya et al. 2019).

The third week focuses on the term professional communication refers to the various forms of speaking, listening, writing, and responding carried out both in and beyond the workplace, whether in person or electronically. From meetings and presentations to memos and emails to marketing materials and annual reports, in business communication, it's essential to take a professional, formal, civil tone to make the best impression on your audience, whether its members can be your colleagues, supervisors, or customers. As per Chalkiadaki (2018) the intercultural communication is a communication between the individuals and groups across national and ethnic boundaries round the globe where it can be as rural vs. urban or generational divides in them. There is one issue in today's global as interconnected economy which is the prime potential for miscommunication when dealing with people of other cultures if employees are not sensitive in nature to the norms of people that they have to interact with and in such situation the company doesn't have to be dealing with people across the globe applying this. Martin (2017) opined that in professional sector, the brand image shows through the internet widespread of the brand’s goodwill, logo, internet profile and company e-mail signature. Any form of professional communication, whether it’s intended to or not, reflects the company’s brand.

In the fourth week, this essay gives a highlighted reflection presenting the fact that how communication skills are necessary in both academic and employment field. From the perspective of individual performance in both academic sector and professional employment sector, not only the communication but other than that some other things are also important to exist like inner confidence, proper attitude acceptance of new ideas and information so that they can help to accommodate what they are gathering from other whether in educational institutions or in the organisation. Steinfatt and Millette (2019) stated that confidence, self-attitude and information gathering capability also shapes their behaviour in educational front and organisational environment. Individual Performance simply means that the individual performance objectives of both employment and educational sector specifically when the attributable to each of the student reflecting upon his/her functional areas and responsibilities along with taking into consideration in case of the top executive's evaluation of performance management, behavioural management and experience gathering in this regard. All of these three elements are equally necessary in both the career aspects of students (Claro et al. 2018). Initially when in educational institution like schools, colleges and universities, they need to evaluate their personal performances, behavioural attitude and what experience they are collecting from their academic period.

Lastly in the conclusion, this reflection shows that all these are later helpful in their future career when they will join and work for any company or origination. These things will impact their organisational character shaping giving their organisational performances, organisational behaviour allowing them to have their best experienced time in their career.

References

Chalkiadaki, A., 2018. A systematic literature review of 21st century skills and competencies in primary education. International Journal of Instruction, 11(3), pp.1-16.

Claro, M., Salinas, Á., Cabello-Hutt, T., San Martín, E., Preiss, D.D., Valenzuela, S. and Jara, I., 2018. Teaching in a Digital Environment (TIDE): Defining and measuring teachers' capacity to develop students' digital information and communication skills. Computers & Education, 121, pp.162-174.

Jones, T.B., Aplin, L.M., Devost, I. and Morand-Ferron, J., 2017. Individual and ecological determinants of social information transmission in the wild. Animal Behaviour, 129, pp.93-101.

Kaplonyi, J., Bowles, K.A., Nestel, D., Kiegaldie, D., Maloney, S., Haines, T. and Williams, C., 2017. Understanding the impact of simulated patients on health care learners’ communication skills: a systematic review. Medical education, 51(12), pp.1209-1219.

Latimer, J.H., 2018. Basic Academic Skills and Post-Secondary Technical Education (Doctoral dissertation, East Tennessee State University).

Martin, G., 2017. The essential social media marketing handbook: a new roadmap for maximizing your brand, influence, and credibility. Red Wheel/Weiser.

Odinokaya, M., Krepkaia, T., Sheredekina, O. and Bernavskaya, M., 2019. The culture of professional self-realization as a fundamental factor of students’ internet communication in the modern educational environment of higher education. Education Sciences, 9(3), p.187.

Steinfatt, T.M. and Millette, D.M., 2019. Intercultural communication. In An integrated approach to communication theory and research (pp. 307-320). Routledge.

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