Antoinette's Early Childhood Blog

O’Hair et al. (2018) state that the cultural context is made up of variables that make our perceptions unique: race, ethnicity, religion, politics, gender, sexual orientation, age, education, role, occupation, abilities/disabilities, geography, and even being wealthy or poor. These differences are known as diversity (Loden & Rosener, 1991). The language reflects, builds on, and determines the situational, relational, cultural, and mediated context (O’Hair et al., 2018). Thus, our language choices should be monitored and appropriate to the relational, cultural, and situational context. Some strategies like code-switching, eye contact, active listening, and paraphrasing could help us communicate effectively in different scenarios. Thinking about my communication skills and behavior, I found that they change depending on the situational context and the people I talk to. For example, when I communicated with colleagues, coworkers, and families in my previous job, I used to utilize ...

For this assignment, I decided to watch the first episode of the British TV series titled  Trying  from Apple TV to see verbal and nonverbal communication skills and cues. A friend recommended it to me, and I decided to watch the first episode to do this assignment. I had to watch it first with the sound turned off and then with it turned on. When watching the first episode without audio, from what I could observe, I noticed that the relationships of the characters, especially the protagonists, were based on many verbal and nonverbal communication skills and cues. The protagonists look very in love; on many occasions, they make eye contact while talking, hold hands while walking, smiled, and show their love through kisses, gestures, and facial expressions. The other characters that appear in the first episode also display different verbal and nonverbal communication skills and cues. The protagonist performs many facial expressions and gestures while speaking and communicatin...

When I think of someone who is a competent and effective communicator, I remember two professors that I had at the University of Puerto Rico when I did my bachelor's degree, Dr. Torrech, and Dr. Martinez. Both were professionals, competent, committed, and leaders in the early childhood field. They had a Ph.D. in early childhood education, and both were the authors of a book they wrote on a preschool curriculum. Dr. Torrech and Dr. Martinez offered several bachelor's concentration courses in preschool education and were also supervisors of teaching practice. Both were effective communicators, sensitive, empathetic, and role models. They knew how to communicate instructions and what they expected from each work or assignment. They were very fluent in explaining and presenting different topics in their classes. They also offered words of support and admiration when we did our jobs well. In addition, they were flexible and understanding if we had personal situations that made it ...