Communication and Communication Skill

Posted to Facebook on 9/9/2019 at 11:39 PM
Communication and Communication Skill

I was given 10 minutes only to present to an audience about Communication and Communication Skill.

The audience was a group of job seekers who had just finished a hands-on session in writing a job application conducted by Michelle Yau-James. Due to this reason, I designed the content of my presentation to stay relevant to what they had been doing.

The following is an outline of my presentation:

• Concept of communication
• Relevance of communication in job application
• Different modes of communication
• Two keywords for successful communication
• 1-on-1 communication versus presentation to a group
• Method to overcome stage fright
• Application of communication technique in writing job application and handling interview

Three attendees stayed back and had further discussion with me. They were very pleased with how I used simple examples to explain the concept and application of communication.

I also answered some of their questions not related to the presentation. In addition, I gave them a good lesson on how to obtain information from someone without asking for it directly.

My parting message to them was “Change your mindset!”

Thank you for reading.

My Story - Sharing my life experience so that others can benefit from it

Posted to Facebook on 8/9/2019 at 1:00 PM
Sharing my life experience so that others can benefit from it

Do not keep your valuable life experience to yourself. Share it. Someone out there may benefit from that experience one day.

On 19/8/19, I mentored 2 migrant job seekers and one of them wrote to the project coordinator her feedback. The following is a transcript:

"Yes meeting went really well with Sin Fong. He shared his experience with me. I was really motivated by his tips and experience so, It will definitely help me with my job hunt in future.

Please say big thanks to Sin Fong on behalf of me. And yeah I think we covered most of the things which I wanted to know. So I don’t think I need to meet him for second time.

Appreciated your help too. It’s a wonderful program for migrants who are really struggling here during their job hunt.

Thanks to u for helping.”

Thank you for reading.

A failure is one who is not prepared to fix their problems themselves

Posted to Facebook on 4/9/2019 at 12:25 PM
A failure is one who is not prepared to fix their problems

Each week, the Year 4 class teacher allocates me groups of students who have learning or understanding difficulty in mathematics. I mean I tackle one group at a time.

I explain the question or problem in the simplest possible way and show them examples in order to make them understand or realise their mistakes. They have to fix the mistakes themselves without further clue.

A week ago, I had a student who cried and kept saying she was a failure because she could not do the question correctly. The student cries whenever she is under stress, not only in mathematics class, but also in other subjects too.

After calming her down, helping her understand, and watching her corrected her mistake, I said to her she had to remember for good what I said. I wanted her to repeat exactly what I said:

”Mr Chan says:
I am not going to cry in class again
I am not a failure
I WILL succeed!”

A failure is one who is not prepared to fix their problems themselves or seeks help/advice from others to have the problem solved.

Thank you for reading.

Victoria's TAFE course completion rate the worst in Australia

Posted to Facebook on 3/9/2019 at 10:16 PM
Victoria's TAFE course completion rate the worst in Australia
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/victoria-s-tafe-course-completion-rate-the-worst-in-australia-20190829-p52m5l.html

Numeracy and literacy problems do not start at TAFEs, or tertiary institutions, but at the early days of schooling.

My current voluntary service in a primary school gives me the opportunity to have first hand contact with very young school children, ranging from Prep to Year 5. I am patiently waiting for the right time to get in touch with the education authority to suggest my education reform strategies.

High TAFE student drop out rate is not unexpected. It is not about employability, but the quality of students.

Most of the students join TAFEs after VCE examinations in Year 12. These are normally not the top performers, and many are likely to be at the bottom of the academic ladder. Some students attend TAFE courses under duress; they either take up a course or face their Centrelink money cut off. Students of mature age are better in general. They attend TAFE for retraining or learning a new skill after being retrenched or out of work force for sometime due to personal reasons. TAFEs can to be blamed for offering courses of no real value. Students are at times given high hope of gaining employment after the course, only to find out that the course content bears no relevance to the real world employment.

A course once known as Office Admistration has been renamed and promoted as Business Adminstraion. Unfortunately, this is a con.

Many students attending a Management course have the misconception that after their graduation, they will be able to land themselves in a managerial position. They do not realise these are not available for someone straight out of TAFE or college.

Hospitality courses conducted by TAFEs are better than those offered by private colleges. Many TAFEs have their own kitchens onsite, and food hygiene is monitored with greater stringency.

Thank you for reading.

Victoria's TAFE course completion rate the worst in Australia

After five weeks of helping Chinese classmates I fired off a furious email

PART 1 OF 2
Posted to Facebook on 28/8/2019 at 8:47 AM
Posted to The Age (27/8/2019) on 28/8/2019
Commenting on “After five weeks of helping Chinese classmates I fired off a furious email“
https://www.theage.com.au/national/after-five-weeks-of-helping-chinese-classmates-i-fired-off-a-furious-email-20190827-p52l8f.html

The higher education system catering for the international students is a complete rort, and it has not improved since the large wave of Chinese international students landed in the colleges and universities.

Entry to the institutions requires attainment of certain level of English competency, either assessed in Australia or overseas. Unfortunately, money can buy “good results” illegally overseas, and therefore it is of no surprise that these international students cannot produce any readable or sensible submission.

I am glad that I am no longer teaching in the system. I do not have to subject to pressure to pass the students even though they could hardly get pass the starting line. I had many students complaining about their international student team members hardly contributed towards the project, or just put in a few sloppy paragraphs which made no sense.

What can a team member do to get the others to pull their socks up if they are reluctant or refuse to do so?

PART 2 OF 2
Posted to Facebook on 28/8/2019 at 3:12 PM

It is time to call for a Royal Commission to have a close scrutiny of the tertiary education system.

The scope should cover the funding models, the unethical practices of the institutions and private organisations to pass audit, systematic rorting of the entry requirement, endemic plagiarism, organisations bullying staff to relax pass marks, provision of trial test papers almost identical to actual examinations, ways to reassess failed students to enable them to pass, excessive charging of course materials reproduced from photocopiers, slapdash collection of online reading materials, etc.

Thank you for reading.

After five weeks of helping Chinese classmates I fired off a furious email

Shock of the new - equipped to face the future workplace frontier

Posted to Facebook to 8/8/2019 at 10:39 AM
Commenting on "Shock of the new"
https://brandedcontent.afr.com/uber/shock-new/

I trained, taught and lectured myriads of seemingly unrelated subjects, including software and hardware, accounting, business administration, marketing, and hospitality marketing.

Each jump may appear to be drastic and unrelated, but the underlying skills were transferable. Besides skilset, mindset had to be modified and adapted in order to survive for the long haul.

Please make sure you are equipped to face the future workplace frontier.

Thank you for reading

hock of the new - equipped to face the future workplace frontier

My Story - teach the students some maths tricks or give them some fun maths facts

Posted to Facebook on 1/8/2019 at 12:44 AM
My Story - teach the students some maths tricks or give them some fun maths facts

Somehow the school teachers thought that I am only good in mathematics (maths). The three different teachers ask me to assist the students in maths. Oh well, so be it

I easily get my guernsey from the principal, teachers and most importantly the students. I am given a free hand to guide the students to do the class exercises the way I see fit

I have been given the green light to deal with students with learning or behavioral problems individually within the class. It is important that the students need to understand where their mental road block is, and how to find ways to bypass or fix it.

Depending on how much time is left before the class is dismissed, I request from the class teacher permission to teach the students some maths tricks or give them some fun maths facts. The teachers are pretty good and attentive audience to say the least.

It does not matter whether it is a STEM subject or not, it is important to find ways to make it interesting and fun in order to minimise or even eliminate rejection by the students.

I have proven that my black-and-white hair is NOT a barrier or hindrance to join these young children and have communication at their age levels.

Thank you for reading.