Final Reflection

http://ylinkhalton.tumblr.com/post/18798686825/life-begins-at-the-end-of-your-comfort-zone-have

My friend introduced me to ES2007S telling me how useful it will be in preparing us for presentation and effective communication.I remembered the decision on taking this course was a huge hurdle to me. Communication is never my forte, getting in to this course will mean I need to step out of my comfort zone and speak in front of the class. In the end, I decided to take a big step forward and go ahead by taking this module alone.

When I was rushing for projects and deadlines for ES2007S, my friends asked me why did I take this course in the first place. I too questioned myself once or twice throughout this course. Having been through the whole ES2007S course, I realized I found the answer.

ES2007S taught me about techniques in effective communications, presentation skills and professional writing skills. Even though a lot of people think these are all common sense and taking up a course on communication is not necessary, I beg to differ. ES2007S provides a platform for us to practice presentation skills, where classmates and teacher provide immediate feedback to us. I found it extremely useful and really glad all the feedback are done truthfully and directly. Other modules in NUS do not provide such platform to share ideas on each other presentation. 

My friend once told me that nobody is born a speaker and even a good speaker need lots of practice in order to succeed. Through this course, I saw all the hard work put in by my peers and I see that those which are better in presentation did put in a lot of effort to improve too. This is an encouragement to me and remind me to put in extra effort to improve my communication skills even after ES2007S ended.

Really glad that my peers are all friendly and approachable. ES2007S is definitely one of my most enjoyable modules so far in NUS. :)

Blog post 5: Reflection on Oral Presentation

Our group project came to an end when we finished our oral presentation last Tuesday. Preparation for our oral presentation was considered short(less than 1 week), however given our content, time was considered sufficient.

We prepared our own individual slides and then come together to discuss about the flow of our presentation by making sure there was no overlapping content, restructuring our whole presentation and  ensure the workload was distributed equally. I think our flow of presentation was smooth when we switched from one speaker to another and we referred back to each other content appropriately.

My purpose of the whole presentation was to persuade our targeted audience (provost) that there was a necessity for implementing a compulsory curriculum in NUS.  I reminded myself on that and I altered my speech to cater to it. We only had five minutes each to present, hence selecting key information was important.

During presentation, I took note of previous comments from my peers and Dr Radhika and tried to put up my best performance. Things like not folding my arms, not holding scripts and remaining eye contact with the audience were some key important take-offs from my peer teaching. Hence, I make sure I did not make those mistakes again.

However, I still think I had not structure my presentation well enough. For example, my presentation still lacks on creativity, audience participation and facial expression which are essential to engage the audience. I am still quite self-conscious and had not really open up myself during the presentation.

I also think that my presentation lack of other types of visuals or audio aids. Perhaps showing a short video or maybe interaction with the audience may gain better consensus from them. Also, there were still some minor errors on the PowerPoint slides which should not be made.

Overall, I learned a lot from this presentation and was definitely an important experience for me to gain better insights on oral presentation. I appreciate all the peers reviews and Dr Radhika's feedbacks and definitely will take note of all the key points and improve next time.