Open your skills inventory if you have it from earlier work in this unit. If you do not, take two minutes and list six skills under reading, writing, listening, speaking, digital and creative. That list is enough to start.
Today you mark which skills are real strengths and which still need work, then write two concrete plans for the gaps. A strength needs evidence. A development area needs an action, not a wish.
By the end you will have a one-paragraph summary of yourself as a communicator now, ready for your Communication Portfolio.
You only need three ideas today: strength, development area, and action plan.
| Term | What it means for you | Real example |
|---|---|---|
| Strengths: skills you can already use, with evidence. | You name the piece or moment that proves it. | Rewriting a letter for two different readers in the same week. |
| Development areas: skills that still need deliberate practice. | You name them honestly, without shrinking them. | Speaking for two minutes without reading every word. |
| Action plan: what, where, by when, and how you will know. | This is the part you can still use after the course ends. | Timed practice twice a week until a partner follows the whole talk. |
Vague plan: I need to get better at speaking.
Strong plan: I will practise a ninety-second talk at home twice a week for the next three weeks, timed on my phone, until a partner can follow it without me looking at notes. I will know it is working when I finish on time twice in a row.
The second one has what, where, by when, and how you would know. That is the shape you will write.
Rate each line and write the evidence. You will score six skills across reading, writing, speaking, listening, digital and creative. A high score with no named piece does not count as a strength. A low score with honest evidence is a development area you can act on. Nobody is adding these up. If you are stuck on evidence, start with In [piece or lesson] I… and finish the sentence. The ratings on screen are not saved, so when you finish, press Copy for my portfolio and paste them into the box below. Then pick the two development areas you will plan for next and write them in the box. Before you move on, take thirty seconds with a partner: are both circled areas something you could actually practise next week, not just a vague wish?
This is your Strengths and Development Map. It goes in your Communication Portfolio, not your Reflective Journal. Write two action plans for the development areas you circled, then one paragraph on yourself as a communicator now. Keep both versions on screen while you redraft.
Talk this through with the person beside you.
Say one sentence from your paragraph aloud to your partner.
After class, you can take the longer thinking into your Reflective Journal. Stem if you want one: Which action will I start first, and what is the ten-minute step?
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