REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

Reflective Journal: Counseling and Awarenes

Reflective Journal: Counseling and Awarenes

This paper is a reflective journal on “Counselling skills and awareness”. Currently I am studying Counselling Skills Awareness for the Tutor. I will be evaluating the development and use of my counselling skills involved in studying this module. This reflective journal also includes compare and contrast of selected counselling skills approaches and models which can be used to enhance my role a tutor. Also indicate my understanding of ethical issues in relation to the use of counselling skills within an educational setting.

The module I am studying is based on 7 weeks (15 Credit Hours). I have learned many new techniques that helped me to develop my skills being as tutor. The breakups for the weekly activities are:

In the first week of the course an introduction was provided to the module. Addition to this we learned counselling skills such as Working agreement/boundaries, Active listening, verbal and non verbal communication.

In second week of the module we were provided with an overview of counselling models, and we studied the counselling skills and role as a teacher in more detail.

In third week we experience relationship building, this includes Values, beliefs, attitudes, and Use/appropriateness of questions.

Fourth week includes ethical consideration regarding personal views and professional limitations.

In fifth week of the module a practical tutorials were conducted among all the students.

In sixth week of the module Reflective practice Personal development and effective supervision.

In seventh week of the module were having groups tutorials and counselling skills practice.

Going through learning this module I learned various counselling techniques mainly communication, to documents the key points regarding communication, and to find how a person can communicate effectively. This raise several concerns of mine, what process should I follow to make my communication effective, or what clan of words should I use to persuade or communicate my message to different audiences. However, while reading the module of counselling and awareness for tutors, “Listening: The Forgotten Skill,” I have identified that in order to become an effective communicator a person needs to be a good listener. The title was to some extent reveals reality (Listening: The Forgotten Skills). People at present are impatient; that is they do not have time to listen, however, if one needs to communicate his/her message properly than he/she must listen to the person/audience he/she is talking (Tolan, 2003: 36).

The module questions its reader; how are your listening skills? Answering this question would help people identify their problems in communication, like I have found that often in the process of communication; I try to put my opinion first, besides listening to the person who is talking to me. This cause disturbance in the process of communication and partial listening mean improper interpretation of the message, which usually leads to poor communication. After identifying my level of listening skills, I have found that the key problem with me while communicating is listening, though I employee different techniques to communicate with the people in accordance with their ...