Time
This was a positive effect to the communication as I was able to conduct my both interactions within an hour. As the both activities I chose to do were not very long this give more time for communications to tack place between the children and myself. Not only this it helped to relax the situations as I wasn’t in a hurry and my attentions to the children was the priority instead of concentrating to the time witch could have cause distraction and a behavior of not interested.
Setting
The setting for the one-to-one communication could have been in a more suitable environment as we had to conduct the spelling activity in the corridor outside the class room so distraction from the rest of the pupils inside wouldn’t effect communication. For that reason the setting worked to prevent communication barriers. However because I brought the child out of a teaching environment it caused them to be more anxious to begin with and to gain their focus on the task in hand.
Noise
This was an negative aspect on the group communication as the noise came from outside of the group from other children within the class room witch distracted me from concentration on my group when listening to feedback and also distracted the children in my group as they were looking round to see what the children in the rest of the class was doing. This could off been improved by changing the environment by asking to us another room.
Seating
This was a positive influence within the communication as I chose to sit at the same level as the children both in the one to one communication and group communication which was sitting down on chairs. As from previous studies about proximity I knew this would be a good way to show the children I am at the same level as them and make them feel more relaxed and comfortable when speaking to me as If I chose to stand up this could have made me more intimidating. In the group activity I chose to seat the children round on a table. This made it easier for me to see all children at the same time and bought more focus within the group activity. This gave less chance for me to have any child go unnoticed and for all children to see me properly removing communication barriers.
Anxiety
This affected communication in a negative way as sometime when the children in the group interaction didn’t want to communicate due to anxiety I became anxious myself and found it a bit difficult to continue the interaction in the right direction. To overcome this I could have gained more experience in working in group communication and understood that not all children will be as confidant as others. When establishing this I would have focused a bit more on the children with anxiety to help them become more a part of the group by reassurance.
Assumptions
This affected the communication in a positive way. This was because the assumptions I used were based around working with children that are younger then myself therefore before I conducted my interactions I was able to prepare on the ways u should and can speak to children to address them in an appropriate and effective manner which will gear and enable them to interact with me also effectively, Realizing that children are more completed to talk to then adults.
The communication cycle was also used throughout my two interactions, one-to-one and group communications.
Aiming
This was where the structure was based as I tried to consider the right way to communicate the information prioritizing the information I was communicating and I had an end goal which was for the child to understand the purpose of the exercise we were doing which was spelling. Getting the spellings correct wasn’t the successful part of the message but knowing ways to break down harder spelling was more the aim. So my aim was for the child to receive my message and have an understanding at the end.
In the group communication my aims weren’t as specific as my goals here were to interact with the group effectively completing the end of the book with frequent feedback from the rest of the group throughout it. So my goals at the end were for me to know how much the children constructively listened the story line of the book an then answered the questions at the end correctly.
Having prepared activities and some additional notes on question helped me to convey the message across more effectively.
Encoding
Here in both one-to-one and group interaction encoding was used as I considered the fact that children will have a less understanding to concepts and words then me. So I used a more simple style of language informal at times to relate the children’s ways of thinking.
Transmitting
This was used as transmitting is the when a person is putting across information to another. In this case I transmitted the information I needed to get across orally in both one-to-one and group communications.
Receiving and decoding
Usually when we receive a information we are interpreting and storing this information and don’t usually the respond until the speaker has finished but as my aim was to create an effective communication between myself and the children during my activities I asked frequent questions to make sure the children was understanding each part of each activity. Due to this I knew throughout the activities the children were decoding the information I was presenting to them.
Responding
Throughout the two interactions I received responses from the children as I was asking question to each child to encourage responses made by them. Not only this once the children became more comfortable they began to respond themselves by asking about the characters in the book in the group communication and in the one-to-one the child was asking me for help in some of the spellings that was difficult.
As I learned the concept of the communication cycle before my interaction practices it influence me in being more aware of how I could improve communication during the group interaction.
