Reflection on oral presentation

I did my first oral presentation in week 3 for peer teaching. Ever since that, we have learned a lot of oral presentation skills in this course. My teammates and I spent considerable effort preparing and delivering this presentation. I felt proud of us.

Before the actual presentation, we met up to have a dry run. Apart from practicing, we gave suggestions to each other as well. I appreciate their suggestions very much. I would have done badly without their help.

Similar to peer-teaching section, I used to have many animal pictures in my presentation. They pointed out that it is inappropriate because instead of classmates for peer-teaching, the target audience of our proposal is the ODE department. KokWei Arvind and Eyo provided many suggestions to help me modifying the slides to suit our proposal better. I believe the carefully tailored script and slides is one strength of my presentation.

During the speech, I used a personal story to illustrate our group’s concern on transport inefficiency. I think it is another strength of my presentation. Based on what we have learnt from peer teaching, storytelling is appropriate for this situation.

Unlike many of my classmates, I was not able to construct a good speech on the spot without preparation because my logic flow is not in English. During our rehearsal, my teammates suggested that I should write down a script to reduce grammar mistakes. By memorizing the script, I would pay more attention on articulation, hand gestures and eye contact during the presentation. This is another important thing I have learnt and apply.

Although I felt proud of our presentation, there are still many improvements can be done to make my oral presentation more robust.

One of the weaknesses is that, during the presentation, I looked at the notes too frequently. It was the first time I used notes in speech. I made one note for each slides, so during presentation I had more than 20 pieces of them in my hand. Ironically, I had to look at them often to check whether I was on the correct page even if I knew the content. For future presentations, I will only write down necessary information on notes. Instead of the whole script- like it is a math cheat sheet. I will keep it organized, brief and more readable.

Another weakness is that I was nervous, even though my audiences are just my friends. This made me realize that although compared with the first presentation I delivered at the beginning of this course, I am getting much more comfortable and confidence for presentation; I am still very far from a qualified speaker. Es2007 is just a start; I will keep practicing and learning without my friends and Dr Radhika’s help in the future.

Thank you.