Posted on 12-Nov-2014
Written by Lance Corporal Steve Lay Hao Yang of 12th Kuala Lumpur Company
October 23rd, 2014
F
or the past three months, I have been in the communication badge class learning a lot of things from my instructor, Mr. Yip. Here are a few things I learnt that have really helped me in my communication with others.
The first week of badge class, we learned about phonetic alphabets. Some examples of phonetic alphabets are 'a' for alpha, 'b' for bravo and 'C' for Charlie. The NATO phonetic alphabet is the most widely used spelling alphabet. Although often called "phonetic alphabets", spelling alphabets are not associated with phonetic transcription systems such as the International Phonetic Alphabet. Instead, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) alphabet assigned code words acrophonically to the letters of the English alphabet so that critical combinations of letters and numbers can be pronounced and understood by those who transmit and receive voice messages by radio or telephone regardless of language barriers or the presence of transmission static caused by poor connections. It is widely used especially during wars by the NATO countries like Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the United States, Greece and Turkey.
After that, we learned how to make a good speech. We can start the speech with different introductions unlike the normal "good morning" or " ladies and gentlemen". For example, we can start with a question or quote from someone famous to attract the crowd's attention. We also need to prepare and look up our speech so that we know what is going to be said to avoid getting nervous during the speech. The content should also be interesting not only to the crowd but also to the speaker so that the speaker will speak with enthusiasm and the crowd can feel the passion and enthusiasm of the speaker so that the speech will not be boring to them. We can also elaborate more on one point so that we do not need many points. As the ending, the speakers should summarise the speech and also give some suggestions and encouragements to the crowd.
In the next lesson, we learned about Morse code. Morse code is a method of transmitting text information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment. The Morse codes are standardized sequences of short and long signals called "dots" and "dashes", or "dits" and "dahs". Each character (letter or numeral) is represented by a unique sequence of dots and dashes. The duration of a dash is three times the duration of a dot. Each dot or dash is followed by a short silence, equal to the dot duration. The letters of a word are separated by a space equal to three dots (one dash), and the words are separated by a space equal to seven dots.
The last thing we learned was telecommunication. Telecommunication is communication at a distance by technological means, particularly through electrical signals or electromagnetic waves. Early means of communicating over a distance included visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs. Other examples of pre-modern long-distance communication included audio messages such as coded drumbeats, lung-blown horns, and loud whistles. Modern technologies for long-distance communication usually involve electrical and electromagnetic technologies, such as telegraph, telephone, teleprinter, networks, radio, microwave transmission, fibre optics, and communications satellites.
That is the end of my sharing on what I have learned in one of the many awards classes offered in the BB - communication. I am really happy to have joined this badge class and it has been really meaningful as I have also learned to improve my communication skill – public speaking. Now, I know what I should prepare next time I am required to deliver a speech in front of an audience. I learned more about how to communicate better and how people used to communicate in ancient times.
Page Created: 12th November 2014
Last Updated: 12th November 2014