Communication ...

Seems like communication is something we keep talking about here. Just thought I’ll share about we have been going through recently, and hopefully, our experience will be helpful to others in one way or another. Of course, advice is most welcomed too!

Ever since our attachment begun, we no longer have the luxury of time. Our mode of communication has switched from face-to-face (my preference) to talking over the phone most of the time during the week. After this episode of communication issue, we have gathered a few learning points.

Poor reception can indeed cause much frustration. All the “huh?”, “sorry…sorry, can you say that again?” , “wait..I don’t get you..” just irritates each other, both the speaker and the hearer. To make things worse, the inability to understand each other’s context only proves to worsen the communication problem. Due to confidentiality in Giraffe’s job, not much can be shared. And source codes etc are just beyond my comprehension. Although he has tried to simplify things for the sake of my understanding, they still sound pretty alien to me. Likewise, pedagogy and classroom management issues are only comprehensible to Giraffe to a certain extent, and we are talking about the teaching of Chinese language here. And to make things even worse, not expressing feelings when needed simply gives the other party the impression that all is well. This can be quite shocking and sad sometimes to the one who shares more freely. Aww. To have a computer engineering student trying to understand a Chinese language trainee teacher (vice versa) is really no easy task. You see the extremes? ;p

However, by God’s grace, we managed to talk things through (at our usual hangout and somehow the same table) and have come to a common understanding of what has gone wrong, and the things that need to be constantly worked on. In the midst of a somewhat tense conversation attributed by much silence, I had this sudden “inspiration”. We can use one of MOE’s slogan acronyms in our context also. Here goes:

MOE – Teach Less, Learn More.
Mouse – Talk Less, Listen More.
Giraffe - ?

Anyway, recognizing the problem is just but the beginning, we need to work on this issue constantly, both separately and together. :)It’s going to be hard work, but needed for sure as we work towards a Christ-centred marriage.