Week 9:

This week in class we discussed the process of communication and some of the possible difficulties that can come along. First, Brother Williams had us take a quiz. The things he wanted us to answer and define were in Dutch (if I remember correctly). It was words like "infuelse," "kommunikationsmedier," and "ska'vi hyggeos." Although these words were unreadable or hard to understand by most in the class, we were able to take a familiar word to us and try to fill in the blanks, or break down the word into something we thought we understood. We also tried to listen closely to the tone of voice and/or reaction of person saying the word. Brother Williams explained this as meta-communication. Although we cannot speak or read dutch, we were able to figure out parts of the words and parts of their meanings. This is very important while discussing a topic with someone. Once a person shares a thought or comment with a person, it is encoded, sent through some type of media, then decoded by the person receiving the comment and then put into their own thoughts and feelings. It is like the game of "telephone" where you whisper into someones ear, then they whisper what they heard to someone else, and so on, until the end person says what they heard. Many times what the end person said is far from what the first person said. This lesson was very interesting and I think will come in handy in my marriage. There are times when I perceive my husband meant something completely different then he had intended and it cause many, many problems. Good communication goes along way and can make situations in life much simpler.