Friday, April 15, 2011

Reflection on Oral Presentation

The group project, done together with Charles and Yinghui, was focused on how to achieve sustainable development in Singapore. Our group came one with 3 proposals, one allocated to the each of us. 

The proposals included:
  • Biodiesel- done by Xiuxian (me) 
  • Cycling- done by Yinghui  
  • Nuclear Energy- done by Charles
 
 

Dry Run
As Yinghui mentioned, as all 3 of us were taking different modules, there was a lack of time to meet up. As a result, our dry run was done with insufficient preparation. In addition to that, I had to be in charge of the introduction, and that made me additionally nervous. The video camera also made me uncomfortable. As a result, for my part, I fumbled and was unable to bring across my points to the audience. 

However, after the dry run, I realised my shortcomings in presentation skills due to pointers from the tutor and my classmates, such as I was too soft, points needed to be elaborated and I need to face the audience more. In addition to that, I also learnt that I MUST NOT put my hands in front of my groin in the 'Adam in Eden' stance while presenting. :P 


With these pointers in mind, I set my mind to do much better for the actual presentation itself.

Actual Presentation
For the actual presentation, our team re-did our slides and script. I added in more diagrams to visually aid the audience. There was a slip-up though, as our slides were unable to load properly. Luckily, Malcolm helped and it works! He was given the name 'IT wizard' aka 'Harry Potter' by the tutor. Haha. 
 
 
 
This time round with more preparation, I was more confident than during the dry run, and faced the audience squarely, while clearly bringing across my points. One bad thing was that I was still too soft. It is something I will have to work on, maybe I should bring a microphone while presenting in future and make full use of existing technology.

Reflection
As a whole, I feel that our group improved alot. Charles managed to find points to support our stand of building a nuclear plant in Singapore. Speaking of which, there has been recent news that Singapore is still going ahead with the plans of a nuclear plant despite the Japanese incident. Yinghui also did well in her part about cycling. Overall, this has been a fulfilling experience which allowed me to learn about and become more confident in presentation skills. (:

1 comment:

  1. Hi Xiu Xian,
    I personally like that your voice which sounds kind of sweet, just like huanghuan mentioned in her post on your group. Maybe some modulation on the emphasis of points will do. And we can hear you well no need the use of microphone unless its a very big room haha.

    And i don't remember teacher giving me the Harry potter nick? haha my memory is dieing.

    well good luck in ur finals and all the best in finding a GREAT job. take care.

    ReplyDelete