LPA1

Textbook questions

1.How do we recognize and differentiate business messages from other types of

communication? Create a table comparing a business message found in an email
and in an advertisement, with informal writing found in Facebook.
Effective business communications should conform to specific conventions of
medium, format, tone of voice and also style to efficiently meet audience needs
(Braun, 2016, p.04). There are some differences between business messages from
other kinds of communication. Language that businesses use is often more direct,
clear and concise than general communication. Business communication is also
aware of tone, which means people cannot raise their voice too high or lower their
voice down to avoid being seen as unprofessional. Moreover, the style of business
messages is to deliver the business information to people who work for the company
and customers outside the company, while other kinds of communication are casual
and used in daily conversation.

Business message found in an email Informal writing found in

and in an advertisement Facebook
Purpose Delivering business information to Sharing casual moments for
maintain relationships between the other people to connect and
business and its customers give comments
Audience Internal and external audience of the Friends and family
company
Informatio Related to what the company do Related to personal matters
n
Style No spelling mistakes allowed Often with abbreviation
Medium Email, advertisement Social media
Tone Formal, polite Informal, chatty

2. Describe a time when you experienced a breakdown in communication due

to lack of clarity or purposefulness of your, or someone else’s, verbal or
nonverbal symbols. What did you learn from this experience?
There was a time when I first had a foreign friend that was studying Vietnamese,
I loved to be with her. One day we were discussing some topic in Vietnamese, I was
speaking when I saw her did not focus on the discussion by the way she moved her
eyes away and immersed herself on thinking, and I guessed it was not me who she
wanted to talk to. At that time, I thought that she did not show me respect and did
not want to listen to my ideas, I suddenly stop talking and angrily looked at her.
However, later on when I asked her why she did that, she emotionally said the
reason is that she was not confident with her Vietnamese so that was why she
behaved worriedly, which made me misunderstood.

Self-reflection

Overall, I benefited from the learning experience and the portfolio questions
because in the past, I did not know the difference between business communication and
 casual communication, or how the verbal and non-verbal languages affect these kinds of
communication. After studying, I see that controlling my tone and also my emotion
while speaking is essential, the reason is that it may affect audience listening
experience. Sometimes I questioned about why communication is so essential in life, but
I got the answer from lecturers that without communication, we will not express what
we want, therefore; we could not achieve anything at all. The information that I found
interesting is using “PAIBOC” questions to make communication process become more
meaningful, and in the future it would help me easily overcome any barriers in
expressing my ideas due to the fact that I know what to prepare before speaking to
reduce misunderstanding.

References
Braun, K., Locker, K. O., & Kaczmarek, S. K. (2016). Business communication: Building critical
skills. Mc-GrawHill Education.

LPA 2
Learning Portfolio 2 Questions
1. Provide two examples of different points of view you have had with someone else. What
do you think caused these different viewpoints? How did you deal with them?
 The first example: When I graduated from high school, I wanted to dye
my hair because I believed it was beautiful and fashionable, whereas my
mother believed I was rebellious and that dying hair was a style for bad girls.
We had a big argument about that
 The second example: My mother and I have two different points of view
about the LGBT community. I think humans have the right to choose their
gender, whether they are boys or girls. My mother thinks that humans should
follow nature and follow their gender when they are born. They should not
break the natural rules and do what they want.
 I think there are some reasons of these different viewpoint:
- First of all, my mother and I have a big distance in age and we are in different
generations. I am in the generation called Gen Z. The younger generation
has time to be influenced by social media and have a modern mindset. My
mother is from Generation X, an older generation that is accustomed to the
traditional and finds it difficult to adapt to the modern environment.

- The second reason is that my mother is still affected by the stereotyping and
still has the old mindset from the past.

- The final reason is that there were many prejudices in the past, and as my
mother grew up, she was affected by those prejudices.

• For the first example, after that argument about dying hair, we did not talk to
each other for 3 days. These days, I've had time to consider whether dying
my hair was necessary for me. Then I decided to apologize to my mom and
tell her that dying my hair was not necessary for me at that time, but that
does not mean dying hair is bad. My mom also
2
understood me, so she told me if I could make my own money, she
would let me dye my hair.

• I dealt with the second example by telling her about Huong Giang, the
famous singer who is transgender in Vietnam. I gave her the evidence
that the LGBT community can make a big contribution to society through
the actions of Huong Giang Idol. I also told her that humans have the right
to live as they want because we just live once and everyone can deserve
to be happy with their real gender. My mom changed her mind a little bit
about the LGBT community, but she would be mad and angry if I was a
lesbian.

2. Explain the differences between facts and opinions.

- The facts show that the statement is true and has the evidence
to prove it. For example: The moon goes around the Earth.
- Opinions refer to one's personal thoughts on various subjects and topics. For
example: You think that you have bought a red beautiful dress, but your mom does
not think it is beautiful because she does not like red.
Facts Opinions

- Reality. - Imagination.
- There is evidence to prove the - There is no evidence to prove one opinion is
facts. right or wrong.
- Can be true of false.

- A fact is true and correct no

matter what. - Subjectives.
- Objectives.
- Biased
- Unbiased

Examples for the diffences between facts and opinions:

- When you meet a new friend and you see her wearing luxury brands. You will
think her family is wealthy. But in the fact, she has to do many part-time
jobs to have money to buy her favourite brands.
- You think that the Sun is not a star and it is a planet, but in fact, the Sun is the
biggest star in the universe.
3. List three strategies for communicating with people for whom English is not their first
language.
 1) We should learn a second language in order to understand the difficulty in learning
languages. We can empathize with those for whom English is their second
language and appreciate the efforts of others to learn our language.
2) Minimize the level of stress in using English by encouraging them to speak English,
not to correct them but to understand what they want to say.
3) Make a message easy to understand by using pictures, drawings, and simple words
to enhance the likelihood of them understanding it whole.

4. Identify three privileges that you have experienced because of your gender, age and
religious beliefs.
➢ Gender:
- I was given candies and flowers on the Woman Day (8/3) from the
boys in my class.
- Whenever I had to clean classroom, the boys always did the heavy
things as cleaning tables, chairs, boards.
- I was prioritized to answer the questions first whenever there was a
competition in my class. Like the sentence "Lady first".
➢ Age:
- When I was a kid, I wanted a toy from my brother, and he had to give it
to me because I was younger than him.
- When I was a kid, I made big mistakes, but I did not have to be
responsible for them.
- When I was a kid, I did not have to worry about money. My parents
raised me. ➢ Religious beliefs:
- Whenever I pray to Buddha for my exam, I will get a fine mark.
- When I feel scared or afraid, I always recite Budha and then I feel safe
and peaceful.
- When I was sick, I rewrote the Buddhist Scripture to pray for my
health and I was healthy again.
Portfolio Reflection Guidance:
After doing questions 1 and 2, I throwback to my memories and think about
my mom and my friends' perceptions.
I realize that people have their own perceptions due to their prior experiences,
knowledge, and psychological states, so we should respect their perspectives,
whether they are right or wrong, to avoid conflicts in communication.
An opinion is one’s personal thoughts, so it can not be a fact. It means that what
you think about a person may not be their real person, except when you have time to
understand them. I was a mean person when I judged my friend by her tattoo and
thought that she was a bad girl. But actually, I was wrong because she was really kind
and nice to me and others.
I think in the future, I will be more careful about judging a person by their
appearance without spending time understanding them.
LPA 3
1.Compare and contrast between listening and hearing. Why is listening
important in the workplace?
 Similarity: Both hearing and listening are actions done by using ears as a
medium to receive a sound.
 Differences:

Hearing: Hearing is a natural ability that people obtain when they are born without any
needs of learning and is one of the five sense, which happens before listening. It is
involuntary because the ears would receive any sound all the time. While hearing, you
could do anything you want, without paying attention to what other people are saying
and caring about your postures. After hearing, you are not required to give any
feedbacks.
Example: While you were working on your laptop, your friend told you something
about his love story but you weren’t interested in. So you just kept working without
acknowledging that you were listening.
Listening: Listening is a process that could be learnt, including receiving a sound, the
sound would be transfer to the brain to decipher the meaning, which happens after
hearing. It is voluntary because after hearing, you must be prepared to understand the
messages (Cheesebro, 2010). While listening, you must listen attentively, as well as
show interests to what other people are saying, and maintain your postures and
gestures. After listening, some feedbacks are needed regarding the topic you are paying
attention to. Listening also helps you better understand the information you received.
Example: You got into a conversation with your friend, who was telling his love story.
While listening, you made eyes contact with him, straightened your back and
commented on his story.
Hearing Listening
Similarity Receiving a sound by ears
Characteristic - Natural ability to perceive - A process obtained by learning and
s sound, one of the five practicing
senses - Voluntary process (you decode the
- Involuntary act (Do not meaning of the messages)
require process of - You need to show your interests and
understanding) maintain your postures to let others
- No need to show interests know that you are listening.
and express your feeling
Using Only one sense: hearing Use all of the five sense: smell, taste,
sense touch, sight and hearing
Frequency All the time Happen when you are processing the
meaning
States Physiological state (Surbhi, Psychological state (Surbhi, 2017)
2017)
Feedbacks No feedbacks required Feedbacks after listening are needed
  Listening is important in the workplace because:
 Benefits of listening in the workplace:
+ Establish connections between people because they know that you are paying
attention to what they say.
+ It helps you gain knowledge and you can apply the knowledge in future
situations.
+ There are some key information that are essential so when you are listening,
you could avoid missing those critical information.
 Consequences of not listening in the workplace:
+ Straining relationships between employees.
+ Losing productivity because you don’t pay attention to what other people say
when they are helping you understand your work.
2. How are the different communication styles (assertive, aggressive, non-
assertive) likely to impact relationships in the workplace?
Assertive style: A person is considered to be assertive is when they state their
concerns in an honest, direct way that still show respect to other people (Cheesebro,
2010). Therefore, people who develop this style hardly or never communicate in a
defensive way that may hurt or disrespect others. Instead, they tend to be open-
minded and take others’ ideas into consideration.
Aggressive style: A person is considered to be aggressive when they state their
concerns and feelings honestly and directly but in a disrespectful way (Cheesebro,
2010). Therefore, people who develop this style are unlikely to communicate in a
supportive way that show respect. Instead, they are too self-centered and choose not
to care about other’s ideas.
Non–assertive style: A person is considered to be non-assertive when they show
respect to other people, however, they may state their concerns and feelings
indirectly or not at all (Cheesebro, 2010). Therefore, people who develop this style
are not usually involved in a conversation to be supportive, and because they don’t
disrespect others, they are not often defensive.
Relationshi Characteristics of Communication Styles
ps communication
climates
Assertive Aggressive Non-
assertive
Description Mostly Unlikely Sometimes
descriptive descriptive descriptive
Problem Orientation Often Never Sometimes
Supportive
Spontaneity Always Never Seldom
Empathy Very often Never Somewhat
likely
Equality Often Seldom Often
Professionalism Very often Never Hardly
Evaluation Never Most often Unlikely
 Control Never Very often Never

Defensive Strategy Seldom Almost Hardly

always
Neutrality Never Always Often
Superiority Never Often Never
Certainty Never Very often Seldom

3. Why is a positive emphasis and an audience-focus in professional and

interpersonal communication highly valued in the workplace? What are
possible negative aspects of positive audience-focused business
communication in social media?
Professional communication: Communication related to work, including
communication between people in the workplace, or between customers and
employees in a business
Interpersonal communication: Communication between people to exchange ideas,
information and emotional experiences (Howell, 2021)
 Positive emphasis
 In professional communication:
 It helps recruit, retain and motivate employees (Braun, 2016)
 Create a positive mindset.
 By avoiding negative words, employees feel positive energy, therefore;
they deal with their works in a positive way to increase productivity.
 In communication between customers and employees, if customers don’t
receive negative messages, they feel that the business is reliable. Then,
they tend to create a relationship with the business.
 Can achieve mutual benefits among employees or employees with
managers.
 In interpersonal communication:
 It helps create better relationships between people.
 Making people think positively in order to avoid negative thoughts could
happen.
 People feel respected.
 According to Braun (2016), people who communicate positively can live
longer and healthier then who don’t.
 Audience-focus
 In professional communication:
 Employees feel valued when the messages focus on them and for their
benefits.
 A shared problems between employees and managers, or among
employees, will be solved because the writers show that they care for the
employees.
 Create customers satisfaction by showing how business meet their needs.
 In interpersonal communication:
 Readers know how they will benefits from your messages.
  Readers feel respected because the messages focus on you – the readers –
than I – the writers.
Possible negative aspects of positive audience-focused business communication
in social media.
Facebook:
- Businesses may adapt another communication style, which is less formal than
communication via email.
- Because Facebook has many teenager users, they might not be aware of their
behaviours, therefore; they might leave some comments that are not quite nice
for the business. Therefore, the businesses must be noticed of this in order to
protect business’s images.

Zalo:
- There are not many young who use Zalo as a platform to search for a business.
Therefore, you may need more resources to manage your presence.

Portfolio Reflection:
I didn’t realize that there are many differences between listening and hearing. In the
past, I thought listening and hearing were the same because in my language, we just use
one word to describe both actions. Now I know that when a person is hearing doesn’t
mean that they’re listening, and we can see it by observing their body languages.
Because of the question, I also learn how to listen to people when they’re talking
effectively.
The third questions gives me insights into the reasons why audience-focus and positive
emphasis are important in communication. Because I’ve never worked in a business
before, it helps me better understand the situations to avoid any negative statements I
could make in the future. And knowing that even positive aSudience-focus business
communication also have negative aspects in social media, I’m more aware of it and
remember to take it into account.
References
Braun, K., Locker, K. O., & Kaczmarek, S. K. (2016). Business communication: Building critical
skills (6th ed.).
Cheesebro, T., O'Connor, L., & Rios, F. (2010). Communicating in the workplace (1st ed.).
Prentice Hall.
Howell, D. (2021, May 22). Interpersonal communication - How to improve this business skill.
Beekeeper. https://www.beekeeper.io/blog/interpersonal-communication/
Surbhi, S. (2017, October 28). Difference between hearing and listening. Key
Differences. https://keydifferences.com/difference-between-hearing-and-
listening.html

LPA 4

Learning Portfolio 4 Questions

1. What do you find most difficult about collaborative writing? What strategies
did you (or your team) develop to make collaborative writing more effective?
Explain.
I find "planning the work and documents" to be the most difficult part of
collaborative writing. Because this part contains many complicated steps, such as:
analyzing the problem, audience, and purposes; choosing the format and style for the
writing; creating a team contract; et al. This part requires a lot of effort to do. All the
members have to attend and understand the work that they have to do. Furthermore,
this is the premise for developing a complete writing collaboration.
I want to develop the planning and revising strategies in my team to make
collaborative writing more effective. Because developing the plans for work and
documents helps us to make clear the responsibilities of each member of the team for
the work, we will also know what work we should do. Having clear guidelines will make
our writing more effective. The other important step that we want to develop is revising
to ensure that all of the work meets the requirements. The revising will result in the
best work if we do it effectively.
2. Describe an interpersonal conflict you have experienced in a team. How did the
conflict benefit the interpersonal relationships in the team as you attempted to
resolve it (the conflict)
Last week, I encountered a "fact conflict" in my team. My team had to do the
assignment of making a life insurance blog. I misread the information about the life
insurance. One of my teammates discovered my mistake and tried to tell me, but I did
not think that I was wrong, so we had a heated conflict. And then he showed me the
evidence about the life insurance, and at that point, I knew I was wrong. Fortunately, we
fixed it on the time of the "freedom-day".
That conflict in my team enhanced our relationship instead of breaking it. We
were all new friends, so when we had that conflict, we knew more about each other. It
helped us communicate more and collaborate to solve the problem. When I tried to
resolve the conflict, my teammates empathized with me, and then we could deal with
the true issue and complete it on time with effective work.

Portfolio Reflection:
After answering the portfolio question, I realized how much the conflict affected
our teamwork. I used to be an avoider who tried to avoid conflict in teams because I
thought conflict was negative, but actually, all the teams that I worked with did not have
effective results.
But now, I know the importance of conflicts in teamwork. Conflict management
can benefit teamwork as it enhances the relationship, creates productivity, encourages
open communication and allows teammates to collaborate to solve the problem. The
conflict I had last week helped me learn more about how my friend solved the problem,
and I could learn a lot from it. We strengthen our relationship through that conflict.
I know that conflict is natural and all teams have to deal with it. Instead of
avoiding it as I used to, I will try to accept it and manage it effectively.
 References
Braun, K., Locker, K. O., & Kaczmarek, S. K. (2016). Business communication: Building
critical skills (6th ed.). Mc Graw Hill Education.
Cheesebro, T., & O'Connor, L. (2010). Communicating in the workplace (1st ed.).
Prentice Hall.

LPA 5
Textbook questions:
1. Choose an example of an infomercial. Identify the persuasion tactics used in the
infomercial. What story does the infomercial tell?
An example of an infomercial: Coca-cola Christmas Commercial 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg4Mq5EAEzw
Persuasion tactics used in the commercial: Coca-cola created an infomercial to target
the familities to gather together in Christmas. It made the audience feel like Coca-cola
was an integral part in Christmas so that the customers would come and buy the
products.
The story that the infomercial want to deliver: A man was leaving home for a long
time to go to North Pole to make his daughter’s wish come true (Coca-cola, 2020). It was
such a long journey due to an accident, he had to overcome many difficulties to reach
that place. When he reached the destination, a Coca-cola Christmas truck delivered a
letter to him, in the letter, his daughter said that her wish was to bring her dad home for
Christmas. At the end, the daughter showed up, and the two finally gathered. The
message that Coca-cola gave was “This Christmas, give something that only you can
give.”
2. How can you create an audience-friendly report? Explain.
Before writing a report:
 Using PAIBOC to define the situation, identify the purpose (why I write the
report?), analyze the audience (who will read the report?). By doing this, I can
have a clear direction do write a report that is suitable for the situation.
 Diciding on the tool that I am going to write and edit the report. Whether it is
Word, Google Docs, or Gmail and Outlook. This is the reason why I have to use
PAIBOC analysis first, otherwise, I may not know what to do.
When writing a report:
 Paying attention to the fonts, font size and format, especially in formal reports to
make it clearer and more readable.
 Adding images or any illustrations to easily convey the messages that I want to
deliver to the audience.
After writing a report:
 Proofreading to check if there is any mistakes such as spelling, grammar,
unappropriate words. Moreover, I may need to add some information that I
couldn’t think of when writing the report.
 3. Discuss suggestions for coping with speaker anxiety in online meetings
There are two suggestions that I want to mention about for speakers to cope with
anxiety in online meetings:
 Taking a deep breath to help speakers stay calm and release any stress and
nervousness.
 When it works best: This suggestion would work when the speakers are
well-prepared before the online meetings. Because all the script or slides
are prepared, they don’t need to worry about the quality of the work,
instead, they just need to get relaxed to deliver their presentations later.
 When it doesn’t work: This suggest wouldn’t work well for people whose
presentations are not well-prepared, especially if any errors due to bad
internet connection or electricity loss happen. Because the meetings go
online, when the system crashses it’s hard to remain calm even if the
speakers try to take a deep breath.
 Preparing some notes when speaking.
 When it works best: Due to online meetings, speakers can take notes and
put it directly on the screen. So that when they forget what to say, they
can just look at the screen, it’s more convinient and natural compared to
physical notes in in-person meetings. The flow would be a lot natural and
people hardly realize that the speakers are preparing notes.
 When it doesn’t work: Speakers who are reliant upon the notes and they
write all the information they have to provide to the audience on the
notes. It makes the audience feels that the speakers talking not in a
natural way. It also makes the speakers become even more nervous
because they see what they are going to read is too long so that they need
to rush, therefore; their anxiety still increases.

Portfolio Reflection:
In the past, I wrote report in a way that wasn’t organized, so I missed out on many steps
that needed, especially the proofreading step. Because of that, my report carried some
errors that needed to be edited. Since I did the second question, I would pay closer
attention to this step in order to make the report professional and flawless.
The third question made me realized that I have been dealing with anxiety when
speaking for a long time without knowing any possible solutions to change it. And when
I did the third question, I found a suitable solution for me such as taking a deep breath, a
step that I often forget to do. Furthermore, I also knew that a suggestion can just work
for some specific situations, it doesn’t apply for every circumstances.
References
Braun, K., Locker, K. O., & Kaczmarek, S. K. (2016). Business communication: Building critical
skills (6th ed.). McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Cheesebro, T., O'Connor, L., & Rios, F. (2010). Communicating in the workplace (1st ed.).
Prentice Hall.
Coca-cola. (2020, November 11). Coca-Cola 2020 holiday campaign - News & articles. The Coca-
Cola Company: Refresh the World. Make a Difference. https://www.coca-
colacompany.com/news/2020-holiday-campaign

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg4Mq5EAEzw

LPA 6
1. How would you quantify an important transferable skill you have developed? Choose
one
transferable skill you know would benefit any employer and describe it in measurable
terms.

Listening is one of the most critical skills I have developed due to some reasons. First of all,
listening is an intentional process in which a deliberate decision is made to listen to and grasp
the
speaker's messages. It is not something that merely happens (that is hearing). Secondly,
thanks to listening
I can enhance my communication skills and also broaden my networking. Finally, an active
listener can
easily adapt to the new environment no matter how difficult it may be.

Listening is a transferable skill that would benefit any employer. When I develop my listening
skills, I can
see how my university life will improve. I used to get stuck with messages from my lecturers
because I
was not an active listener. When I developed this skill, I knew how to listen to and receive
messages from
my lecturer and also understood 100 percent of the lesson. Not only does listening help me at
school, it
also helps me with teamwork. One time, when I was working on a team as a leader, my
teammate was
late for a deadline. Instead of criticizing her, I listened to her reasons why she was late and
showed my
empathy. Then she worked 80% more effectively in every team assignment and was never late
for a
deadline because she knew I would always listen to her problems and empathize with her. My
effectiveness in teamwork increases by 85% when I use my listening skills to listen to and
understand all
teammates.
2. What is the STAR interview technique? Research to discover how to use the STAR
technique to answer interview questions.

The STAR interview technique is a four-step strategy for answering questions:

• Situation: Describe the situation that you were involved in.
• Task: Explain the task you had to complete.
• Action: Give specifics about the steps you took to achieve the task.
• Result: Finish with the outcome of your activity.
The STAR method provides us with a simple, easy-to-follow story that shows the interviewers
the situation
you had and how you addressed it with details.

The first step to start this method is Prepare. We should listen carefully to the question and
think of the
event. Then we apply the STAR method.

Situation Give context and history to the situation to set the stage for the story. If you are
asked about
problem-solving, your answer should provide problem details: why do you get the problem,
who is involved in that situation, and what is your position when you get that problem.
Task Explain your specific role or responsibilities in the circumstance. Make sure the
recruiting
manager knows what you were supposed to perform exactly, rather than what everyone
else did.

Action This seems to be, without a doubt, the most crucial section of the story. In this section,
you
should describe how you dealt with the challenging scenario or solved the problem. Indicate
if you worked alone or in a group. What you're attempting to convey is your appraisal of the
scenario, your answer to the problem, and how you enlisted help for your solving.
Result Finish the story by saying how your activities resulted in a positive conclusion and
what
lessons you gained. If possible, quantify the outcomes and demonstrate the impact of your
actions. You should provide the number here. For example, a 20% increase in sales, over
100 networking, et al.

Reflection:
I was a lousy listener, looking back on my experiences. Instead of listening, I was actually
hearing.
But now, by practicing every day, I'm making listening skills a vital part of my life. This is the
most basic
interpersonal communication skill that I believe will benefit me in the future, particularly in
the business.
I've learned a lot of important facts about business communication that I didn't know before.
I now know how to construct a great CV and résumé with details and numbers to wow the
employer as a result of these teachings. I can also learn more about the STAR technique. This
strategy
would be really beneficial to me in my interview. It's the only way I can make an impression
on my recruiter.

After three years, I aspire to be the most remarkable candidate in my interview. I'll practice
vital
skills and obtain additional experience to make it a reality.

References
Braun, K., Locker, K. O., & Kaczmarek, S. K. (2016). Business communication: Building critical
skills (6th ed.). Mc Graw Hill Education.
How to use the STAR interview technique in competency-based interviews. (n.d.). Indeed
Career
Guide. https://uk.indeed.com/career-advice/interviewing/star-technique