Final Reflection

It has been 12 weeks and this module is coming to an end. Thinking back, I had learnt so much about written, verbal and non-verbal communication. Communicating in English has been a problem to me; I have to think of what I want to say in Mandarin, translate it into English, and reorganize the content so that it makes sense to others. After the peer teaching and oral presentation, I feel that actually I can do fairly well just like others.

Conducting a survey and writing a proposal to propose a solution is something new to me. Aaron has helped me a lot in editing the proposal as my English is not as good as him. In the process, I had learnt to write using the ‘you’ attitude for the proposal to be more persuasive. The few videos about presentation that Ms. Lim showed in class were very helpful in my learning.

I had learned through the resume writing that when you write using different words, though conveying the same meaning, it can put the reader looking at it in a different perspective and the feeling is totally different. I had found that my blog post is always not as interesting as others because it only generate very few comments. I guess it must be too long and the content is difficult to comment though I spent a lot of time writing one post, trying my very best to write a post with high quality.

Overall, it has been a pleasant experience taking this module but it could have been better if I were to take it in my earlier years of study. Working in a two-person team with Aaron has been a great experience; it is just much easier to schedule a time to meet, either online or face to face, thus increasing our efficiency. It would be great if this module can teach a little about negotiating skills and a bit of psychology as I think it will be helpful in a business deal.

Reflection on Oral Presentation

Preparation work including designing our slides, outlining the content, logical sequencing, progressive of each points, etc. started one week before the actual presentation date and the first draft only came out two days thereafter. I keep in mind a principle which I learned somewhere that for each slide I present to my audience, there must be a central idea I wish to sell to them. Due to my weak command of English language, I wrote a complete speech text verbatim. The speech was crafted in a way that as much as possible engaging the audience by using questioning techniques. I also tried to think in terms of them and therefore to my best understanding, anticipating and addressing their concerns before being voiced out. Aaron and I did not get to rehearse our presentation until one day before due to some other commitments on both sides. We did a few test run and commented on each other for improvement. On that day itself before class, we rehearsed in a seminar room which I think help me visualize myself presenting to the NUSSU.

In terms of delivery, my voice is clear though my pitch is slightly high, causing me to sound a little fierce but overall I have a pretty good pronunciation. It will be good if I can vary my tone a bit more and adding some element of humour during the course of my presentation. I went smooth at first but do not perform as well toward the end due to the time and problems flipping the script. I stand still in the almost the same posture throughout with some hand gestures. Probably I should have use more hand gestures to emphasize my point. I believe if I was able to present without a script, which will be better as I am able to utilize hand gestures more effectively. I was not too natural when I present. My hands were sweating; however I still manage to overcome my wobbling knees. More eye contact could have been established to show attention to my audience.

On the whole, I think I had prepared myself well and did quite a decent job and at least after this presentation, I had gained some confidence and experiences for any presentation in the future and I am happy with it.