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(Pauline 2006)

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Action Plan

By the 5/2/05

Phone WEA centre to ask about minors participating in the Understanding Wine course.

By the 10/2/05

Complete enrolment form and send it off with payment

First interaction 26/2/05

Participate in first class

Create a journal entry

Second Interaction

Participate in second class

Create journal entry

Third Interaction

Participate in third class

Create journal entry

Fourth Interaction

Participate in fourth class

Create journal entry

By 8/5/05

Complete 1000 word summary draft

Ask Pauline to check draft and make corrections within the following two days

By 12/5/05

Have Oral ready to present

Journal 1 - Planning

For my application I intend to undertake a wine appreciation course which will involve a significant degree of interaction. This course spans four sessions, each lasting 2 hours, and involves learning about wine and the language used to communicate the quality of different wines to others.

In organising the series of interactions I will use different forms of communication including:

      Reading and analysing the text describing the Understanding Wine course

      Phone calls to WEA

      Completing WEA Enrolment Form

Examples of the forms of interaction I will be participating in during the wine course are tutorial style classes, small group discussions and reading fact sheets. During the course of this Interacting Application I will create a series of journals recording each interaction. These journals will comprise an analysis of each form of interaction such as the purpose, format, language, audience and context. They will evaluate how effective each form of communication was as part of the interacting process.

Journal 2 – Organising Wine appreciation course

Initially, when browsing through the WEA adult learning course guide, I found an abstract for a course titled Understanding Wine. The abstract is featured below and is form of interaction I participated in whilst organising the Understanding Wine course. The purpose of the text is to convince adults who want to learn about wine tasting to enrol in the Understanding Wine course. It is a short description of what will be learnt in the course and using words like ‘pleasant’ and ‘relaxed environment’ to convince the audience that participating in this course will be a valuable and enjoyable experience.

Understanding Wine In a pleasant, relaxed environment, discover how to identify wine qualities and styles and learn about the basic wine­making process, in terms of how it influences taste. David Crossman

After deciding to enroll in the Understanding Wine course I phoned the WEA centre. The purpose of the phone call was to check if minors could participate in the course. In today’s society phone calls provide an impersonal way of communicating with people and have the ability to be brief and concise. This particular call consisted of a friendly salutation from Kim, the WEA centre attendant. This was followed by me using words like ‘enquiring’ and ‘regarding’ when asking if I could drink wine for educational purposes. The call concluded with me expressing my appreciation.

enrolment form in hard copy (wont transfer to this site) 

Another form of communication that I used in applying for the Wine Appreciation course was the above enrolment form. The enrolment form informs the WEA of my interest in participating in the course and details such as my name, contact details, the course I am enrolling in and how I am paying for the course. The format is not continuous prose but allows the audience, the WEA, to gather the relevant details without unnecessary reading. This saves time for both the person filling out the form and the person reading the form which is a valuable thing in a society where everyone is rushed and no one has time.

These ideas are based on psychology work that I have done which was focusing on impressions of people and what enables us to gain an impression of someone. I think this is closely linked with communicating with other people because the same things will allow me to evaluate the interaction.

Journal 3 – Interaction 1

When first walking into the Understanding Wine classroom there were two tables arranged for the students with the teacher’s desk out the front with a white board. Initially David Crossman, the teacher, introduced himself and informed the class about what affects the quality of wine. As the set up of the room suggests David Crossman was communicating to the class as a teacher communicating with students. Also he was standing at the front of the room, writing on the whiteboard while everyone else was sitting at desks taking notes. This is considered the standard format for someone teaching but involves little interaction on the part of the student. Due to the lack of communication from the student to the teacher I don’t think this is an effective way to interact or teach people. The teacher receives feedback from the student’s body language which can be misinterpreted. For example, the lack of eye contact from the student can be taken as lack of interest when the student is actually confused and not understanding the way the teacher is trying to convey information to the student.

Journal 4 – Interaction 2

This interaction demonstrated the importance of the body language of a class to a teacher. Throughout the class I observed that when David Crossman asked the class a question there were several different responses. When a student avoided eye contact with David Crossman it suggested that they either did not know the answer or were not confident enough to voice their ideas. Avoiding eye contact is an example of a lack of interaction and poor communication.

Another response I observed was when the student obviously knew the answer and maintained steady eye contact. An excellent example of this was when I didn’t volunteer an answer to a generic question but maintained eye contact with David Crossman when he was asking the class for an answer. He then specifically asked me to answer the question which showed that he was aware of my eye contact and therefore assumed I knew the answer. This was an example of how body language contributes to effective communication.

Journal 5 – Interaction 3

At the start of the course each student had a defensive body language which by the third class was noticeable different. Initially each person sat with a significant space between them and people they didn’t know. Also most people had their eyes focusing either on the ground, the clock or leaflets that had been handed out. By this class most people could be observed interacting with one another either by conversing or simply making eye contact and smiling.

Journal 6 – Interaction 4

Due to this class being the final interaction the atmosphere of the room was more relaxed. It appeared that David Crossman picked up on this and did very little talking to the class but instead set up an environment where people could discuss and debate the quality of the wine.

Just before the final class finished David Crossman asked each person to complete a student evaluation form. Evidently the form was a generic WEA form which was completed by every student regardless of the course. The form followed a basic format of statements with the students asked to tick which response applied to them. This format allowed WEA to gain a degree of information without asking students to spent large amounts of time commenting on the course. Filling out the form was another example of interaction and communication.

Journal 7 – Brief Evaluation of Interactions

The nature of the interactions that I participated in during the wine appreciation course were:

Student and teacher communication

Tutorial style classes

Analysing wine as group

Debating wine quality with other people

Discussions with a small group

Completing Student Evaluation Form

The success of each form of interaction depended on my body language and attitude. The more positive my attitude and the more exaggerated my body language the more successful I think the interaction was.