Reflection_Level-II_1021

Can we imagine classes came to an end?

Not at all! Rather it’s a beginning.

How come?

Learning is a continuous process. It never comes to an end unless person stops learning. I am sure that we all are not from that category who stops learning in this competitive era. When I entered in to the class room, I saw tripod and some other stuff on table right around the corner. I imagine that something special is going to happen in today’s session.

Anxiety came to an end when session started with a game. It was again an exercise of putting thoughts and giving feedback. We did several related exercises in the past and based on experience I still feel that sometimes thought process stops emerging. Consequently we hunt for thoughts and if we didn’t get it, we repeat it again and again just like as a tape recorder. What is important is to have variety of thoughts and it’s continuous flow. Once idea gets emerged, jot down and explore it. I strongly believe that this process may become helpful to speak continuously expressing thoughts.

Similarly we did in the past an exercise of turn taking. Here I found one of the deficiencies in our group. Inspite of giving opportunity, they were not taking turn. It’s just an exercise to see how many thoughts we contribute in to the process.

As a part of self evaluation I would say that I got benefit from class. Lots of sessions with different activities bringing up new learning experience every time.

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Reading, writing, listening and speaking are the four most important skills. We came to know 5th skill as “Culture”. I surprised to learn as to how culture can be a skill? But yes…it can be.

Office-3- A funny video! When we saw Office-1, I remember that I watched it for nearly 5 to 6 times to understand words and sentences. It was too difficult to catch. Office-3 found somewhat easy-might be- because of practice.

Video was more or less on culture. We say US culture in “Office-III”. Not always it’s true abut somewhat. Drinking, free office environment, proposing someone, hugging, kissing are common there but against culture over here. This is the reason that when we see someone doing such things, we get surprised. On the contrary in their eyes we feel like as orthodox. This is somewhat about cultural difference. We are more on family oriented where as they are cultural oriented. Right from dressing to lifestyle, communication, everywhere we notice major changes.

The theme behind office-III video was to show cultural difference which is also one of the important elements to know over and above reading, writing, listening and speaking ability. If one has all the four abilities but not aware with 5th; then it may pose difficulty. Sanjay cited very good example with which I fully agree. During the course of conversation, it is observed that people in US, focus on pithy discussion rather than giving explanation like we do!

We were inquisitive to see “One Play” by different teams. Of course we’re not real artist but did best effort to present crux in an effective manner. Leaving weaknesses aside (like expressions, reading dialogues from material, minor mistakes) I would say that effort was made to use collocations, speech, language, dialogue delivery and so on. I consider drama exercise as a platform to apply whatever we learned from different exercise-right from presentation till grammar. I enjoyed this session!!!

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Communication classes-II is coming to an end and I wondered why Sanjay has not shown any movie? I was astonished when he asked to write at least 4 or 5 thoughts on the word “Legend” and jot down points if there may not be anything in the world. This was an indication about something is going to happen in the today’s session. My curiosity came to an end, when he started session with the movie “I am the legend”. It was a wonderful movie containing several learning aspects. Language was pretty understandable (leaving few sentences/words). Sometimes back I’d seen movie “The Happenings” in Fun Republic. More or less this movie resembles the same. End is altogether different - totally different than expected. In Hindi movies, hero always services, here it was not so. However his research was survived for a long. It became immortal.

Next part of the session started with pronunciation exercise. I realized that it’s easy to speak words in general but rather difficult to speak in front of an audience because they can easily catch mistakes in pronunciation. This was purely based on sound practice we did in the past. Putting more stress on word, may make language artificial. Suppressing it may indicate lack of confidence and probably lose the purpose.

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“In the Ghetto” - Ankit’s favorite word!

On beginning of the session, Sanjay asked us to jot down points on “Ghetto”. Always there are two sides of a coin. According to me, word “Ghetto” has two paradoxical meaning. On one way it’s a symbol of discipline. On the contrary, it’s a pictogram of blind followers. Both are dangerous…!

We are habituated in listening Hindi and Gujarati songs. While watching English movie, when English song comes up, we switch on channel. Reason…? We don’t like it or we don’t understand it? I would say we’ve never tried to listen carefully and essence behind it.

In the earlier sessions, we learned about bringing variety in writing. Same was after listening song; I would say we should bring variety in listening. This wisdom came after listening song “In the Ghetto”. Let’s see how long it lasts:).

When song started, frankly speaking; I couldn’t understood anything except some of the words, like: “In the Ghetto”, “And his mama cries”, Energy young man”. We heard song for second time and then a third time. Surprisingly, when I heard song for third time with the help of a paper exercise, outcome was totally different than expected. It’s really…really beautiful song but a sad story. It’s really a heart touching song. Why mama cries? Why angry young man dies? What’s happened to a child?

So what’s the take-out from the story?

Grippingly, it’s all about developing understanding and listening ability. Use of phrases, adjectives, collocations and idioms makes the sentence more and more interesting.

The second part of the exercise was all about understanding and listening ability. We have been given different cards and asked to put n a sequence of song. This can be possible only when we heard song in a proper sequence. Our group was wrong on 4 places.

Immediately after a song, session went ahead with one another game. On four sides, four cards were pasted with different messages. We have to read it and gather at the proper place as per the sentence specification by Sanjay. Game was all about word stress. Some time back we learned as to how meaning changes because of giving stress on certain words. In the second part, several members (including me) misunderstood and went in to different direction. Game is a self explanatory as to how we misunderstand message because of stress and follow wrong direction. May be; because of misinterpretation or misunderstanding.

After a long break (I would say mini vacation), next session will be more energetic as it is followed by a play incorporating concepts, we learned in different sessions. We have a team of artists and now let’s see how we play:)

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Just imagine…if you receive lots of emails every day, how you will give priority to it without reading all? Confused? Yes, me too!!!

This is what a learning process for me in a session of today. Session started with a small and intelligent game. Participants were divided in to three groups and they have been given cards of different colours. They need to read out content and explain to other members within the group. As soon as first process got over, members were shambled. Again members asked to explain content to group other members in their new team without help of card. Of course it was a bit tough task. Sill almost all has done a good job. How this could be possible? Whether every member could remember whole of the content and explained in the same manner? No!

The second part of the game started later on. Cards were again given to members with headings. As per the exercise, we need to match heading with content in respective card. Our team did a phenomenal job. We committed mistake in two cards only.

Take out from the game is to increase memory power, reading ability (called as bird’s eye) explanation power. Question may arise as to how we can do this?

Very simple…!

Just memorized some important words and based on that explain to others. Remember important words from heading, specific words and or content. We may mark underline topic if needed. This exercise can be useful even in story telling too. We need to remember that essence is more important than going through each and every word of the story. What we generally do is try to remember each and every word and consequently loose control over natural expressions. Here if we may jot down some important points and memorize then I don’t feel it may be difficult to express.

Now let me to come to my first question. When we have several emails then it may be a cumbersome process to read each and every. If we know this technique then from subject line/heading and focusing eye on some of the important words, we can justify crux of the email.

I got good feedback on writing task. Mistake I did was excessive usage of continuous tense “ing”, which should be avoided. I’ll take care in my redraft.

The third phase of the session started with long awaiting process of story telling. It’s an art. Some of us have done a phenomenal job. General feedback we got was to focus more on expression using key points, be natural and make use of gestures. It should not be as artificial which resembles like student in a school telling story to classmates in a free periodJ. I feel it as an important process which we can apply during our presentation to attract audience.

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Today was the day of result and everyone was anxious to know their score. As expected, session began with result of test taken on last Friday. That was the end of our curiosity. I did reasonably good job in vocabulary, reasoning and true & false statements. I could do better in report writing but because of shortage of time I could not do, which was reflected in my result. Major mistakes we all did were in grammar exercise. There was some sort of misunderstanding which has created disaster. Of course I should still work upon my listening skill going forward. That was the major area where I lost my marks. In report writing I should avoid using lone sentence and repetitive words (like Asia Pacific). My performance was poor in tense exercise. Exam gave some sort of wits to take care about common mistakes. I’ll take care about all such things in upcoming exercise and do effort by which same or similar mistakes may not happen again.

At middle of the session, Pragnesh and Payal have delivered presentation on “Who are you?” They have delivered theme in a wonderful way. Lesser number of slides and larger emphasize on content made session live. Self evaluation process and judgment based on drawing (one sort of exercise) made it more interesting and could easily understood thought.

At the end of the session, Payal gave an excellent performance on story telling. No one was ready to tell story after that looking to her superb performance. Sanjay has extended time duration for story telling to next session so that we can be well prepared like her. I appreciate her wonderful performance. This is what exactly expected from us. Of course she could do her hard work. Intonation was perfect and that has made story interesting.

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We had an extra session on 20th September emphasizing on phonetics. In this extra session, large emphasize was given on vowels, consonants, syllables and word stress. This was explaining about how North American ascents.

There was a good graphical presentation of a tongue showing where we should put stress to utter different vowels. We did practice of vowel 1, 6, 10 and 11 (namely “ee”, “ea”, “ah”, “oo”). English is a stress timed language and therefore vowels and consonant carries out a higher weightage. Wrong usage of sound may carry different meaning. We did practice of different vowels and made a clear distinction among four.

It is observed that we don’t care of phonetics while talking with others and therefore it creates problem while speaking with US counterpart. We should do practice and bring out improvement over a period of time. I learned as to how we should put stress on abbreviations like US natives are doing.

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Session started with feedback on writing task of “Waterside Industrial Park”. We’ve largely discussed feedback of group members and noticed that still we are struggling with words and committing mistakes. In my writing I’ve used bullet pints which should be avoided. Some of the inappropriate tones and redundant words I’ve used, which should be ignored. In business writing, communication should be crisp and meaningful. Lengthy business writing defeats the purpose. I’ll take care of feedback in my next draft.

We had a test of 90 minutes immediately then after. Test was based on several exercises we had done. There were I found the test simple. I feel that proper time management is necessary to attempt all the questions in an effective manner. Q3 on reasoning has confused me a lot and I consumed lot of time there. All the 5 options were logically correct and difficult to find out a correct one. Due to that, I got bit shortage of time at the end. I have attempted 23 vocabularies as against required 20. Looking forward to the class result for mid term test.

Level-II_Blog on Blogs

I have reviewed my blogs from 7/18 till 9/16. I observed that in my initial blogs, size of writing was tiny which was gradually increased day by day. After getting feedback from Sanjay, we came to know that we should explore our thoughts and bring variety of writing. In subsequent blogs I saw usage of new words that we learned during the classes.

I felt that style of writing blog till 7/31 was monotonous. We again got hard feedback from Sanjay and got some examples of writing a blog from him. Not even that, he has also provided one of the material containing how to write a blog. I brought improvement in my subsequent blogs which is apparent from writings.

We did an exercise thrice about finding mistakes from blog. Blog writing is not a process which we write just before class starts just to comply with formality. I have seen that thoughts were not synchronized properly in earlier blogs. Sanjay gave some of the tips about. Based on the same I started reading blog once I complete my writing. When we write a blog, numerous thoughts are coming in to mind. When we read it again, we can edit or modify by finding mistakes from own writings.

Gradually I have observed that content in writing was increased with variety. Usage of some of the wrong words eliminated like: use of having. Wherever necessary thought were linked with examples, which was lacking in earlier blogs. It’s a good exercise to evaluate performance based on practice and exercises done.

Laziness was observed in writing blog in-between; consequently norms were decided to serve the purpose. One of the conditions we have framed was to put blog within 24 hours. It worked well for a while. Some time later, again laziness observed in some of the group members and one more rule added by Sanjay was to write reason in the diary for not entering blog within a time frame.

Overall, I would say improvement is noticed in expressing thoughts. However as discussed earlier, if I may get comments on my blog then I feel that it will be helpful so that I may know as to how much improvement I have brought in to.

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Session started with a game of “Speaker and Interlocutor”. Participants were divided in to pairs where in one has to play role of speaker and other has to interlocutor. Based on rules framed, we have played and enjoyed it.

Takeout from the game was to see how many follow up questions are asked by interlocutor. It’s a game to develop listening and understanding ability. While playing role of interlocutor, it is important to what extent we can link idea. If we want to connect idea then first of all we should be a good listener. In my experience so far, have seen several time interlocutor focuses on question without bothering about answer given by speaker. This was an exercise to express thoughts within a stipulated time and at the same time; interlocutor needs to frame crisp questions. This found more or less a same game we have played earlier but here we didn’t find that much difficulty to generate and express thoughts. My partner was Nehal and he could express thoughts quickly, although he has under utilized time frame given to express.

In a next round, I played role of a speaker. My partner was Hiren. Initially I didn’t get various thoughts to express. Gradually I’ve started giving examples and started linking topics with other scenario and ides suddenly sparked in my mind.

Seema and Chirag became volunteer to give a presentation on "Telling The Story Right". This was really a good topic to peak a lot and they did their best. They could still do it better by giving live examples and incorporating story in their presentation. They have largely covered crux but as the title suggest, they should make it live. Telling a right story at the right time is an art. Excessive use of story and irrelevant example may make the topic boring. It should be used appropriately at an apt time.

We have discussed about the grammar exercise “Present Perfect Tense” (use of have and has). Good to know that this tense is to be used when something happened in the past but effect is still there. Still there is a confusion about using “have” or “has” for anything that is plural. For E.g. People, data.

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Session started with presentation on “Telling the Right Story”. Me and Jasveer took a lead to deliver it. Topic was so nice and interesting that even an allocation of full day will be a lesser time to express thoughts and ideas. We did our best but still we could do better. Learning objective from the presentation is to know art of telling story to make presentation live and interesting. We have heard about presentation by Sudha Moorthy in IIM-Ahmedabad. She delivered speech without any presentation keeping interest of the audience intact.

We have seen lots of presentations and one common thing among all is “Examples”. However one should note that excessive story telling makes the presentation boring. Story should be told at a particular point and create nexus with the topic. If story has no relevance with the topic then it may create bad inkling. Gestures/expressions/pauses, beginning-middle and end plays imperative role to attract curiosity of audience. It’s not always true to say that positive stories can create positive environment. Even negative stories can creative positive environment if one knows art of telling. For E.g. if some one got a failure then he can mention that he learned from the experience and that failure show him way to success.

After the presentation, we got a feedback on writing task. The common feedbacks all of us have got are: use of repetitive structures, lacking in having range of vocabulary (Sanjay has given an example that Pragnesh has used about: Ubiquitous mobile phones). Our writing should be impressive. Most of the writings were in a mechanical form.

Rather making it as a monotonous task, we should make it interesting for readers to read. We should use collocation and idiomatic language wherever required, keeping large focus on interpretation on numbers. Payal read out task written by Pragnesh and it was awesome. He applied different approach in writing task. Sanjay said earlier too; that we should apply variety of writing rather than getting satisfied with the stuff of vocabulary we are having. When I saw my feedback, I comprehend that I had used word “irritated” excessively. I could use different words following different patters. I will take care of such things in my next draft.

We have replayed 2 minutes game on giving speech on topic assigned. Last time we have identified topics relevant to SNL. Quintessence behind this game is to identify how quickly one can think and deliver speech spontaneously. Last time my performance was poor. This time I could able to complete full time and staying on top in heaving thoughts. Even several participants did good job this time.

Takeout from the game is to build up premise which can be built on: 1) Cause and effect 2) Chronological order-Historical time 3) Reframing time and length 4) Describing thought 5) Comparison 6) Parallel happening 7) Linkages 8) Suggestions/instructions/prescriptions 9) Examples/illustrations 10) Sequence 11) Usage of schemata and 12) Keep speaking/Don’t stop your thoughts in between.

It was observed that we were stuck at a points/topic assigned. I think, we had created frontier and focusing largely on topic itself and that’s why we were not getting ideas. This situation leads us to failure. I think if we go little out of the phrase/word of topic then definitely we can do well. I liked the session most.

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Session started with a game of gestures (actions and expressions). Members were divided in to pairs. We have been given cards backed by different expressions. Based on this, each and every member has to show expressions and the other has to interpretate it. My partner was Nehal.

We’ve seen that people in US usually use gestures while expressing their thoughts. This is a one sort of body language. Communicating through expressions is very important as one can easily convey significance to other w/o speaking anything. Some of the expressions usually they follow are: time is up, fantastic, get out of the room, something is boring, cheerful moment, admiring some one.

In the last session, we have identified some tough words from the article given by Sanjay. He has synchronized all those words in a word documents and took a test of memory. We were able to give synonyms of some of the words but majority of them largely left out. It calls for rigorous effort and constant updation. He has explained as to how we can memorize words. No need to cram. E.g.: Word-Rehabilitation. We can link this word current situation of Bihar and Florida. By this way we can memorize word for ever.

We learned prepositions from Asia Pacific Video. During our conversation, we use prepositions like: at, on, in etc. We learned as to where we can use it. When we are talking about time, then we should use “at”. We should use preposition “On” while talking about days and “In” while talking about season or different day times. E.g. In the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening. But here one should remember that we should speak at night and not in the night. Same was use of %. If number comes first then we should use % sign otherwise we should write percentage. For e.g.: 100%. Here number comes first. These are the small things but very important in conversation.

In the last week, we had played two minutes game on expressing thoughts. Overall performance was not satisfactory expect for few members. This time, we have prepared topics in context with SNL on which all of us have to give spontaneous thoughts in the next session.

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Session started with two minutes game. This was the same game which we played earlier in a group (and assigned one minute everyone) to express thoughts. I felt exercise tough than played earlier. Might be because of the reason; I was presenting thoughts to a larger audience than earlier. My performance was very very poor which I haven’t expected so far. I could not express as many thoughts as I should be. On the contrary, I like performance of Nilam, Seema and Ankur. It was feeling like as a natural speech. Take out from this game is to learn formatting sentences. We should increase reading and activate schemata to have variety of thoughts. This sort of exercise becomes helpful to scan emails and hidden meaning behind.

Presentation on argument was a group exercise. Based on material provided for reading, I felt it tough. We tried our best to present in a cogent manner and in a different way than provided in a material. We have presented valid and invalid arguments. It was an interesting topic. I personally feel that presentation given by team of Nilam was excellent. Out of the three topics assigned, their topic was the toughest one. However they explained in an astonishing way. An example given by Pragnesh on Intelligent buffalo was confusing. Still I am confused as to whether buffalo can be intelligent? :). I learned to match premises with conclusion. Conclusion may not be true unless argument is valid.

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Session started with 1 minute game. Before starting the game, members were divided in to three groups. Each group contained three members (except my group). I was accompanied by Nehal, Alpesh and Chirag. As per rule of the game, we need to speak on the topic written in the card. For giving any new thought on topic, I need to put one pin on the table.

In the first round game was going bit slow but it picked up from the second round (as all got some what experience). I’ve enjoyed and found it a brain storming exercise. It’s a thought exercise where we can judge ourselves as to how quickly we can throw suggestions. I felt that some where I was lacking in flow of thoughts. Initially I was feeling that I can speak a lot in just a 1 minute (60 seconds). But when I started, I was having 15 seconds excess to speak but lacking in flow. Based on the exercise, I feel that it is not important how many counts are there rather it is important, how precise thinking is? At the end of the session when Sanjay explained meaning of idioms used in different topics, I came to know that some where I was lacking in creating nexus between topic assigned and thoughts delivered. Wisdom came after Sanjay explained meaning of idiomsJ

Some of the drawbacks I saw in general that spontaneous example didn’t come up as expected. It justifies that we want lot of thinking before expressing our ideas. According to me, this exercise is helpful to give a quick answer.

I want to mention here one of the real scenarios. There was convocation in IIM, Ahmedabad some times back and dominant personalities were invited as speakers (like: Vijay Malya, Saurabh Patel, N. Narayana Murthy, Karsanbhai Patel and so on). Vijay Malya gave comment on prohibition of liquor in Gujarat and explained how much losses State Government is incurring because of such type of rigid approach. An immediate next speaker Saurabh Patel (Minister of Industry) answered in an appropriate manner in his speech. Such type of spontaneous answer comes in to mind if we have developed ability. Even we have seen that Ministers in a debate. They are very quick in responding. Even once can cater humor if he is having such ability and make presentation more interactive.

Next to game, each of us has been given different articles and asked to find out difficult words and expressions. While going through a single page article (A silly season?), I got 11 new words and few expressions. Basically I saw those words for the first time and therefore it was new for me. As Sanjay mentioned, such usage of words in article or news paper are very common and once we go through every day, we will get familiarize with those words. Normally while reading an article, we understand meaning of a word based on sentence. Here we ignore to go in to the root and update our vocabulary. As mentioned in my earlier blog, vocabulary is important to bring variety in writing.

We took recap of grammar exercise given in the last session. We largely discussed about usage of Simple Past Tense and Past perfect tense. I believe that now I can understand when to use Past Perfect and Past Perfect.

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Exercise of “My Thesaurus” was wonderful to learn. When I started exercise, I thought that this is an exercise of synonyms. Looking it from a different angle, I comprehend that it was not just an exercise to find synonyms, but rather a tool to bring variety of words in writing. With the help of words like this, we can express our thoughts very precisely (also called as crisp writing). Generally it happens while delivering speech that person speaks longer sentence to express his thoughts. Audience can easily judge that he is hunting for words. If person is having good amount of vocabulary in hand then he can pass clear and precise message to the recipient. Even communication may become more effective. Especially while delivering presentation at a higher level all these things are very important. We all have seen presentation of Santosh Nair, where in for a word “Devotion” he has used several adjectives and synonyms like (Dedication, Killer instinct, patience, commitment, loyalty, affection, fidelity etc…) and made his presentation effective that is what we all know about.

Presentation on different topics of Prof. Randy Pausch was really nice one. Over and above a story, it was a reality. In different presentations, I observed variety in way of delivery. Different way of presentation by Payal was remarkable. Even we could judge very easily who did preparation and who did last time preparation. Some members felt very serious at the time of delivery. Sanjay has rightly said “Seriousness should be there in the preparation not in the presentation”.

The learning objective from the story was usage of idioms, way of thinking, planning and looking a dream. I should ask question to my self”Do I have dream? I so, then am I working on it?” Why Prof. Randy did all those things when he was a limited time period to live? He could enjoy his family life. How Prof. Randy was different from others? Questions are quite alarming. He was the person who saw dreams and fulfilled all his dreams. He was thinking that no one can stop you from watching the dream. By ding this thing, he wanted to show his children who may remember him even after his death. What a deep thinking….!

Seema and Nehal have delivered presentation today. Content was good however variety needs to brought in delivery. Both of them were loosing eye contact and standing at the corner. Even one minute presentation of Nehal was better than his presentation. Q & A session could have been handled effectively. There was no need to give answer of Ankur’s question which has no relevance with topic. Lacking of aggressiveness and feeling of nervousness were areas call for improvement. In case of Seema, she did lesser use of PPT and more focused on delivery part. It is worthwhile to quote example of presentation of Prof. Randy Pausch here. He has written that he was very nervous before delivering presentation. Even he was not finding a topic since last three months and how he made it more interesting that is what we all have seen about.

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We learned formal and informal way of communication through Asia Pacific Video. While speaking, we use informal words and abbreviate combinations (Eg. We’ll). During the course of writing we use formal words. To make communication stronger, we should bring improvement in our writing style. As mentioned in the earlier blog, we don’t speak words in the way in which we write and vice versa. Certain language choices, words and structures are more formal than others and are reserved for more formal situations. I learned as to how I can bring development in writing by using formal words. E.g.; Rise is less formal than expansion. In a real scenario, we normally speak and write in informal language which may not turn in to effective writing.


Presentations were given by Hiren and Alpesh. Based past feedback on presentations given, I found pros and cons in both presentations. Presentation of Hiren felt better than Alpesh. Excessive usage of some of the words defeats the purpose. In presentation of Hiren, I observed that pauses are reduced and still he should make effort to bring further improvement. Frequent usage of “Right”, “ok?” defeats the purpose. He should still focus more on formulation of sentences and avoid grammatical mistakes. He needs to maintain eye contact. On the other hand, his charm was really good and he did good job in delivering presentation with the help of lesser number of slides.

Lots of improvement calls for presentation of Alpesh. Eye contact was not proper and lacking in charm. He was delivering presentation on Performance Measurement System where as he was frequently speaking “Performance Management system”. He stood at a corner. Movement was lacking. He has not done audience analysis and putting more stress on words was making presentation boring. He applied smart way to handle Q/A session. Overall I would say that it calls for lot of improvement.

Whatever feedback received by individual member in Task-2 were shared internally. While going though feedback, we came to know that almost all were lacking in mentioning flow of thoughts/ideas. Even I did one technical mistake for which I haven’t thought that some one can do critical analysis like this. I should cite example of AI after example of calculator. Some of the words I’ve used were redundant. I should avoid false starts like “There may be chances”. I’ll take care of feedback generally we’ve received in my next draft.

Level-II_Reflection_0822

Session started with a small test on “Bagging the question”. I find it a brainstorming exercise to justify how much through reading we have done. I like different ways of getting question. This exercise may especially useful while delivering presentation, explaining guidelines, where it is significant for us to confirm better understanding of audience. I like tricks to get answer in assertive way, which is a one sort of convincing audience on our approach/thinking.

Again feedback exercise on blog was carried out in the session. Feedback exercise has alerted us. I could dig out carelessness out of it.Several pros and cons were discussed but the learning objective from the session was to be creative and careful while writing blog. To avoid mistakes, it would be a best practice to review our writing once.

Looking to carelessness in submitting assignment, we have been asked to design norms. I understand how Sanjay would be aggrieved because of such sort of carelessness of senior level Managers like us. I believe that it is not important which type of norms we are preparing but how much we follow it. It is rightly said, “Rules are easy to frame but difficult to follow”.

It was good effort from Ankur to deliver presentation w/o PPT. Every one was expecting PPT but he applied different view. Of course, he could make it more interactive and live by sharing his experience and giving examples to audience. Still it was a good effort on his part to memorize the whole presentation. He could do better if he would have managed his time and created some hypothetical scenario. Even no real example of writing a business plan was given in whole of his presentation. He was bit disturbed with my smiling faceJ but still I appreciate Ankur for keeping smile through presentation.

I saw charm in the presentation of Pragnesh. He has tried his best to make it more and more interactive by asking questions but unfortunately he didn’t get proper response. I believe that such situation gives opportunity to presenter to tackle situation.

Level-II_Reflection_0819

Asia Pacific Video:

Pronunciation exercise we learned sometimes back was very helpful. In a common parlance, we don’t speak word in the way in which we write. To justify a difference, we heard different sentences and came to know how pronunciation differs based on usage of “strong form” and “weak form”. Some times back, we have carried out exercise on sounds (44 sounds). I had a question at that time as to how we can identify sound we need to use? In today’s session, I came to know the real nexus. Based on the session, I feel that now I will be able to encode some of the words from “The Office Video” and the video of “Prof. Randy Pausch”.

I want to share one funny thing here. After going through the session, I’ve tried to apply strong forms during the course of conversation with colleague. He requested to repeat the sentence for a twice/thrice. I realized there that I’ve properly understood and learned itJ.

Panel Discussion on Inflation:

Basically inflation is not my favorite topic. However we (me and Ankur) got the role as per our choice. Role has encouraged us to capture as many details as we can. We have gathered lot of stuff to argue and put others in to defensive but because of time constraint, we could not be able to put all points in to discussion. There was a wonderful participation by all the groups. Of course within the time limit allowed to us, we remained successful to put majority of our points among them. I am excited to see the video and get a “critical” feedback from Sanjay in the next session.

Blog writing:

It was a brain storming exercise for us to see how we commit mistakes while writing a blog. Sanjay gave sample of blog to identify mistakes. We could trace out mistakes. I think this will alert us to review once again whatever we have written. Next time we will receive sample blog with name of candidate. Considering the same, I’ve reviewed writing of my blog for a twiceJ.

Well, take out from this exercise is to review our writing once again. This exercise will help us to find out our own mistakes in formulation of sentence.

Level-II_Reflection_0808

The guests of the session were Nate Haskins and Khurram Shahzad. Class started by recapitulating activities done in the last session. Members were divided in to two groups and they need to scribble down activities carried out in the last session. Both the groups have jotted down their points in to separate sheets. At the end, we observed that several things were missed out by the other group to cover. I think the purpose behind the activity was to taste memory power.

I liked the video on Vitamin D & Cancer. The learning objective was Facts & Opinions. Based on usage of some of the phrases in to a sentence justify as to whether it is a fact or an opinion. Phrases generally used to frame an opinion are Believe/think/feel.

Secondly, we’ve started with a grammar exercise where in we learned use of some model verbs like as; can, could, may, might, should, must etc. I learned as to where I can use those model verbs. While speaking/writing, generally I was not taking much care about using specific verbs because I was not finding major difference among them. My intention was just to convey the message. Here I learned as to when and how I can use Model Verbs like as; Can, May etc… Exercise of Episode 2 Vitamin D-made all my doubts clear after lots of debates especially where I was wrong.

There was a turn of three members (Me, Chirag and Jasveer) to deliver presentation on topics already assigned. After the presentation, hordes of conversation took place. I acknowledge feedback given by the group as well as Sanjay to bring improvement on the areas specified. As per the feedback, I still need to bring improvement in handling questions bring an improvement on pronunciation. I will certainly work on feedback received and make sure that in my next presentation those two things are completely vanished.

We got glimpse of activities to be done in the next session. In next session we have to do panel discussion where in myself and Ankur have to play role of businessman. This will be a thrilling exercise for both of us to work upon. We have gathered different information to discuss.

Level-II_Reflection_08/05

Discussion on Video-The Office-2: As far as conversation is concerned, I find Part 2 more difficult than 1 in understanding pronunciation. Speed of conversation found little faster than first. After repeating video again and again, I could be able to trace some of the words spoken by David and Gareth. In addition to conversation I’ve noticed use of compound, collocation and idiom which we used in the session of 7/31. As such it was an amusing video which thrown lots of points for discussion among us like as: Handling appraisal process, misunderstanding, passing on wisdom truth, dealing with subordinates etc.

Video of Study English: While learning verb, adverb, noun, pronoun with the help of video, I found that I came back to my schooling days. I find it more useful and meaningful exercise. I could easily understand the way in which an example of word “Crime” was given in the video. Spelling is very important in studying and therefore one should be cognizant with related association. While talking about “Association”, there are two types of association as under:

Semantic Association-Associated with meaning
Phonetic Association-Associated with sounds

I learned about different pronunciations. In US, generally a word comes up with double spellings like: (Offence) then they pronounces both the spellings separately where as we speak both the spelling together. (E.g. electronically, harassment, different etc…). Some of the tips given in the presentation to remember words were really meaningful and I find it useful. It’s a six step process elucidated as under:

1) Write down new words

2) Check spelling

3) Find other words that belong to the same family

4) Speak loudly

5) Write down 5 times

6) Pronounce it.

Video of Prof. Pausch: It was a great learning experience for me to capture words from his speedy speech. We’ve seen clipping of about 10-15 minutes out of video of approx 1.2 hours. I’ve observed his body language; spreading humor even in the sad situation. The humor he has catered within the audience by giving an example of “Mackintosh” was awesome. Most important thing touched me over and above presentation is his level of confidence. He knows that he is going to alive for 3 months only because of brain tumor; he has delivered speech so energetically which was really remarkable.

Level-II_Reflection_07/31

Corpus: Words have different meanings. Unless we put into practice, we can’t comprehend where and how effectively we can apply. In the second session, an exercise of spelling was given to us. The learning objective was to know the connotation (synonyms and antonyms) and memorize it. Today, Sanjay gave brief overview about website of www.americancorpus.org (The Corpus of Contemporary American English-COCA). It was a wonderful learning experience for me to know where and how words have applied in different situations. I’ve gone through site as directed by Sanjay and learned it’s different application.

Graph Reading : Initially when this exercise was given for homework, I thought, it would be a same exercise for me, which I learned during Sanjay’s written English classes. But the way in which session on graph reading went ahead, I find it totally different. I really enjoyed the session. Graph reading was backed by a technical analysis. I was partially successful in doing technical analysis. Although I didn’t find enough clues from the charts to do analyses further. I was successful in comparing first two charts but could not encompass comparison of four charts together. After a lot of discussion, it gave an insight as to how charts can be interlinked and compared. Almost all of us failed to do inter-comparison of charts. It was a great learning experience when Sanjay shown technique to do analysis. It gave an imminent as to how critical analysis should be done based on details available. If graphs are shown to a layman, he will focus simply on diagrams and data. A person from a technical background should use coherence in written English.

Level-II_Reflection_7/29

Business Pronunciation: It was a great exercise to pronounce different words. I learned on which word I should put stress to pronounce properly. I learned three sounds /p/ /t/ /k/ having two verities:

(i) Aspirated and

(ii) Non-Aspirated.

I learned the basic difference between them. The first one encompasses sound to be pronounced with extra puff of air and the other is ordinary sound. In a regular course of action, I was not emphasizing on such things. I learned where I was committing mistakes during the course of conversation.

Video of Human Rights: It gave insight in to observing things based on videos. Videos were throwing lots of messages. I learned to interpretate them based on, using wrong English in advertisement, expressions, dialogues, colour, background music etc. The real learning part in all those videos is to develop critical observation power. It gives insight in to critically observing message/theme behind it. Video presentation makes the proverb true “Action speaks louder than words”.

Grammar: It is rightly said that we write English in the way we speak. We learned how we are making lot of common mistake in communication. We commonly use word “having” “getting” etc. I came to know that there is no word “having” but this is wrong English which is usually spoken and accepted. I also learned the difference between Present Tense, Past Tense and Past Participant. An Example of: when I reached to station, train had already been left” made my all doubts clear.

Level-II_Reflection_07/25

Video on Human Rights: It was a video of around 2-3 minutes and conveying quintessence of Human rights. I learned from the video of presenting things in an effective way within a span of 2-3 minutes. There should be a creativity to explore thoughts by way of advertisement or clipping like this. Sanjay has cited one another example of advertisement of a Bike. It’s nothing but expressing of thoughts in an effective way. Whenever I will see video I will focus on critically observing dialogues, background, dressing, music and the most importantly understanding theme.

Vocabulary Test: It was a great learning exercise. Of course I can’t escape from appraising in this way only. At the same time I would acknowledge that I was not so good on vocabulary part. The way in which it was played, was wonderful. There was ambiguity in some of the words. I’ve never tried to use new vocabulary. In a nutshell “I would say I was using the words which I had but never tried to earn more and more words and put in to my bucket”. My attempt will be to apply those words in a daily routine and memorize it. I think that’s only the solution. I would admit, that as a stepping-stone, I’ve used some of the words this reflection.

Tenses: The story of “Kanhaya” was all about using of present tense. It gave an insight as to how we can use grammar to make sure that sentence may not feel bad. It is an experience that we are writing in the way what we speak. E.g. Letter of Gopal. That leaves a bad impression. I don’t love grammar but really I enjoyed the session the way it was explained. By way of different examples, I learned as to how we are using grammar in a wrong manner. I’ll ameliorate by working on it. Using of OWN ESL was a great exercise of learning English. One good thing I learned is use of HAVING. It’s an improper use of grammar and we are used to use improper grammar.

Blog Writing: It’s a reflection diary and based on feedback received from Sanjay, I tried to implement here. I was using “We” rather than I. I should mention what I felt. I will do my best in forthcoming reflections to implement this.

Level-II_Reflection_07/22

Discussion Skills: In a common parlance, it is seen during the course of general discussion or in a meeting, that a person who speaks for a longer duration or loudly attracts attention of others. In a professional environment, this notion may not hold true. It's immaterial as to how much you are speaking, rather how much effective it is? The learning objective from the game (game of thread) we have played is to understand how many times we have given chance to others to speak or express his/their thoughts.

During the course of conversation, one should use phrases to express certainty or uncertainty of any incident. It expresses thoughts as to how much one is confident/assertive on his expressions. Normally we give emphasize on vocabulary or grammar while speaking. Using of phrases makes the task very simpler and easy for recipient to understand.

Discussion on clipping of "The Office": Keeping the other funny things aside, I would like to emphasize on the crux. The learning objective here is use of Phrase/expressions during the course of discussion with David (E.g.: Could you...? I mean..., I'd say etc...).

Belief on learning English: Different heads, different opinions. May be it's a myth. What I feel is...learning of language is a continuous process and it has nothing to do with age, sex, region or education. I firmly believe that untiring effort to learn English as a language (rather as a subject) may lead to sure success.

Level-II_Reflection_07/18

Control a Conversation:Generally during the course of conversation with foreigners, it's observed that either some of the words are skipped to hear because of speed or lack of understadning their ascent. Here the best way to overcome the situation is to use phrases that we leared during the session. It's having a vital importance because these are the usual terminilogies which are being used to communicate in a US ascent. Of course over usage may pose difficulty too.I believe, at the learning stage it is good to use these phrases to know the real meaning or proper understanding of word/sentence. In a practical scenario, over using may create wrong impression on the other person.