Self Reflective Report For The English Class

Introduction

This report aims at having a comprehensive reflection about myself. I have looked trough my personal strength and weakness that I am currently having. In order to improve myself, I have found some solutions to strengthen the skills that working in a hospitality and tourism industry must have.

This report has divided into four parts, by following the Gibbs Reflective Cycle (1988). The first part is my skills audit, which has been presented in a table form. It will go through the skills that I am having right now and discuss about whether I need to improve them in the future or not. The second part is my critical reflection and self-awareness. It will focus on my strength and weakness before and after entering the university with some personal experiences. The third part of this report is my action plans. Since I have gone through what skills I have to improve in the previous part, this part of the report will focus on what can I do to improve those skills. The fourth part of the report is my conclusion about this report, which has summarized this report. The last part of the report is my reference list and appendix.

Skills Audit

This part of the report helps me to identify what kind of skills I am having right now and whether I am confidence with. All those skills are essential for me to work in a hospitality and tourism industry. I have linked them with my previous experience. Through this part of the report, I was able to understand more about myself and know what aspect that I need to improve and develop in order to meet the requirement of the hospitality and tourism industry.

Critical Reflection and Self Awareness

Before entering University

When I was in college, I have taken several leading positions at school, including the committee member of the Student Union and the House Captain. These posts had taught me a lot, I was able to learn a variety of skills and through the posts:

Leadership and better communicating skills

I was offered the chance to become the House Captain of school’s Camellia House last year. The post benefited me in many ways. At first, I used to be timid girl who easily got confused; as time went by, I changed a lot thanks to the duties I had. The most memorable moments for me being the House Captain are definitely the most exciting days for the school’s four houses — the Swimming Gala and the Sports Day. Not only did I have to take part in the races, but I also had to manage a lot of works. Distributing different duties to my fellow committee members to facilitate the smooth running of competitions was the most stressful duty I ever experienced, not to mention I needed to lead my housemates to maintain high morale throughout the events. Even though the works I had was stressful and sometimes bitter, seeing all those cheerful faces of my housemates after the races paid off. I was able to learn how to deal with stress and manage my time and work during different sports and academic competitions I helped to hold in my house captain days. I also had the chance to meet schoolmates from all ages, which aided me to learn how I treat people with distinct personalities confidently.

Organization and IT skills

Apart from the House Captain, I was elected a member of the Student Union in Secondary 4 with a goal to provide a better school life for fellow schoolmates. The one year of hard work was fruitful. The experience provided me with brand new challenges, such as planning and preparing for an activity from scratch, communicating with others in school, and earning heart-warming friendships at inter-school events. Moreover, I have also learnt to publish a magazine from it’s very start, including designing, writing script, proofreading ad so on. Me and my fellow committee members have to check all the details very carefully in order to make sure there are no mistakes. Moreover, I have learnt how to use software on computer to do the typographic design. After that, I have become more cautious and learnt some new IT skills.

After entering the University

After I got into the University, I have broaden my horizons and met a lot of new people. However, I found that I still have some difficulties in some of the skills area, which I really wish to be improved:

Being confidence

As a student of the International Hospitality and Tourism Management (IHTM), there are quite a lot of group projects throughout the semesters, but when I am getting along or communicating with my fellow groupmates, I was too shy to talk with them. I tend to talk less to avoid conversation with my groupmates that I am not familiar with. Moreover, I seldom express my own point of view during the discussion because I’m afraid of making mistakes. The main reason for this situation is because I am not confidence about myself. However, being a worker in the hospitality sector has to communicate with strangers around the world, being confidence is necessary. I do hope that I could became more confidence while facing people that I don’t really know about.

Language skills

Since English was not my first language and I seldom talk in English with my families and friends in my home country, I still cannot talk fluently in English in daily lives. I found it hard to express what pops up in my mind exactly to others and always got nervous. I may sometimes missed or couldn’t catch up what people are saying. However, English is one of the most popular language in the world, serving customers in English is unavoidable while working in hospitality industry. I really hope that I could improve my English during my studies in the University, building up a solid language foundation for my future career.

Action Plan

I have chosen some of the skills area in the following table and explain what kind of practical steps I can take to improve them. I have chosen language skills, confidence, customer service and build up social network as areas to improve. The reason for choosing is because they are the key elements that I need during my work. For example, I will need to serve the clients with my language skills and great customer service in order to provide the best experience for our customers. Moreover, I also need to have a good presentation skills to present the ideas to my colleagues precisely. Last but not least, I will need to build up my social network from now to broaden my horizon and get in touch with people from different part of the world working in the same sector.

Areas to improve Practical steps to be taken

Language skills As English was not my first language, I would like to try meeting other international or local students and try to speak to them without being afraid to make mistakes. Moreover, I would also like to join the English support program in school and read more books in order to strengthen my English skills, including writing and speaking. “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”(George R. R. Martin,2011) I believe that reading is the most effective way to equip myself. Other than English, I would like to learn a new language, so I decided to join a GSA language program in the next semester.

Confidence 

'Becoming an excellent public speaker will help you in every part of your career. But there is an even more important reason to learn to speak well to an audience.” (Brian Tracy, 2008). Therefore, I would like to try to speak up more during our group meetings and express my thought without any hesitation. During presentation, I would try to speak up and having eye contact with audiences. I would read more articles about presentation and watch some well-presented lecture online, learning some new presentation skills from them.

Customers Service 

Since hospitality and tourism is a service-based industry, I would like to gain more experience through working in a restaurant or hotel. I planned to apply for a summer internship in my home country during my coming summer holiday in order to stand out from other applicants when I apply for a job in this industry.

Build Up Social Network 

Working in the hospitality and tourism industry may sometimes get the chance to work in different countries. Since most of the students in our subject are international students, they came from all over the world. I would like to grab the chance of getting along with those students, building up my social network. When I got the chance to work abroad, I may have a local friend to guide me through the process.

Conclusions

Working in hospitality and tourism industry requires workers to have several types of skills, including leadership, ability to work in a team, organization, punctuality, numeracy, communication, IT, considerate, customer service, positive attitude and so on. It seems to be quite difficult for us to meet all the criterions because it has a lot. However, after finishing this report by following the Gibbs reflective cycle(1988), I had got to know more about myself, I know what kind of skills I am currently having and what should I improve by the skills audit and critical reflection and self-awareness section. I have found some solutions in order to make myself more competitive in the industry by the action plan. I think this report teaches me a lot because I had a better understanding about myself now. “No one is perfect. We all have weaknesses and limitations. Some can't be fixed. But, at least, a leader shouldn't find herself blindsided...” (Assegid Habtewold, 2014) Everyone was not born to be perfect, from now, I would try my very best to stick on the action plan to build a solid foundation for my future career path.

References

• Graham Gibbs: Gibbs reflective cycle (1988
• George R. R. Martin: A Dance with Dragons (2011)
• Brian Tracy: Speak to Win: How to Present with Power in Any Situation (2008)
• Dr. Assegid W. Habtewold: The 9 Cardinal Building Blocks: For continued success in leadership (2014)
• Vince Lombardi: Brainy Quote (Accessed: 7 Nov 2019) (available at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/vince_lombardi_385070)