The very first thing I realized was the term “oral presentation”. In my engineering modules so far, we just use the word “presentation”. But here, the word “oral” made me pay attention more to focus on delivery.
Preparation
Normally, I prefer to do first when there is a choice. But having a chance to do last mad me benefit a lot. If our team were the first one, I could not do as much as I did on Monday. Then I had a chance to learn the first two teams’ experiences, their way of presenting their delivery of content. These were valuable face –to-face tips for me to prepare, besides my research for presentation. Brad mentioned to keep slides simple, type less word and speak out more. When the first two teams applied these, I just understood the difference between theoretical knowledge and real experience of these presentation tips. These are very effective! And it was nice working with my teams and during rehearsal they pointed me out some errors and mispronunciation. Thank you my teammates for the correction.
Before it was about to start
Brad gave us 10 mins to prepare before we started. That period was the most restlessness time for me. I wanted to start and be over as soon as possible. I realized myself how impatient I was. I need to improve to calm my mind down. The plausible reason was I had another heavy presentation immediately after the class. That could make me restlessness.
While presenting
I got the feedback that I could have more connection with more eye contact. That is my weakness. During presentation, I might be looking at you. But in my eyes, I did not see you most of the time. What I saw were the words and sentences of what to tell next. My conscious mind reminded me to look at the audience but my subconscious and unconscious mind sometimes controlled over me to think of what to say next. This could be the base of the problem for doing some rocking motion in stance or pacing a bit rushed at times. I did not realize my behavior during the time.
After
I reflected on myself after the presentation. I think this problem could be due to my lagging process of speaking English. Since my first language is Burmese, I have used to think in the following way. I think in Burmese, I translate it, and before speak out, I need to check grammar and sentence structures and then finally speak in English. Listening even lag more since there is one more step of translating into Burmese first. I was afraid of Q&A session. Fortunately, I managed to understand all the questions being asked. After almost 3 years in S’pore, I think in English and speak in English without translating first for most of the daily life sentences. But I still need to improve a lot.
What I learned
From the oral presentation, I learned a lot about how to attract audience, how to use visual aid carefully, how to project your voice affectively, so on and so forth. I believe I have much more confident in presentation after Monday. It was nice learning experience throughout the process. Now I have 13 more nice friends!
Hey ye thu win, I think you did pretty okay but I just have one feedback. I thought that you should have tried to use your hands to gesture rather than fold them at your chest. It gives the impression that you're impatient. That was a misleading non-verbal cue. Other than that I thought you were quite good. I find that your English is fine and it is understandable that the structure would sound a bit different but I can understand what you were saying so I thought it was okay.
ReplyDeleteI am also thankful that I have made new friends like you! See you in class on thursday
Hello Ye Thu Win! I think your presentation was alright too but I have some suggestions that you might want to consider for future presentations. Like what you mentioned in your blog entry, I felt that there wasn't enough connection through your eye contact. Probably you speak slower so that it gives you more time to look at your audiences and at the same time it gives you time to think about the next point.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing is like what Soon Yee had mentioned. I felt that you folded your arms too often during the presentation. It gave the audience the feeling that you are restless and nervous. Oh and maybe you can refer less to your script during the speech.
Other than that, I felt that your voice projection was pretty good. You sounded loud and clear. And I got the idea of what you intended to put across. The position that you stood during the presentation was pretty ideal as well; since we could see the screen and the presenter (you) at the same time. Great job! (: Cheers!
See you tomorrow!
Hey there
ReplyDeleteI'm sure by now you would have many presentations already. Yes you were very confident when you were presenting which was good. I think there was also excellent voice projection. Pardon me for my slow ears but sometimes i cannot catch what you were saying because you went a little fast at times. I think the fault lies with me.
I shall not mention about the folded arms which shihhan and soonyee did. OOPS i just did. I think there was another point was that you can sway around a little less. I found it a little hard to concentrate on you with all the swaying movement. Maybe its my slow eyeballs.
Anyway your presentation was clear and in general effective. Content was good and I could understand. The flow of your presentation was smooth and I can clearly relate to the idea that was being developed.
Good luck for your exams. Study hard
Hey Thu Win,
ReplyDeleteGood effort on your presentation. My one major concern, like the rest, was that you folded your arms throughout the presentation. You seemed very fierce! I think you had a friendlier vibe during the peer teaching. With that said, I felt that your tendency to move around during presentations improved a lot from the peer teaching and your voice projection was excellent. As for your diction, it could be improved but I guess it takes time. I admire the tremendous effort you take to improve your English. Good job overall!
Geraldine
Ye Thu Win!
ReplyDeleteGreat job! I know before the presentation you were busy trying to memorize the last few points which you admitted that you had trouble remembering. But I must say that you did breeze through all your points with relative ease. However, one point which I noted was that you tended to rock on your heels (a bit) and had your arms folded. I thought that this stance gave you a very impatient vibe as it did seem like you wanted the presentation to be over and done with. Maybe next time you could use hand gestures to emphasize some points you want to make and it would draw the audience closer to you. Voice projection was good. I think you made an effort to speak clearer and your accent was not as strong this time. Great work!
All the best for exams :)
Hi
ReplyDeleteThank you all for your feedbacks!
All of you pointed me out the same thing- I should not fold my hands. Noted it down and I‘ll try to use some appropriate hand gestures in potential future presentations. In fact, I did not notice my behavior or movements during the presentation. Now I knew how I did. I’ll also try not to sway around.
All the best for coming exams!