Presentation is a big headache for me as I am not good at speaking in public. When presenting, I become nervous, worried about forgetting my words. This makes my speaking fast and sometimes it is difficult for my audience to follow. This time, it worries me again. As it is a team presentation, I am really scared that my performance will drag our team down. After our proposal is done, my fear is even stronger: the idea is so wonderful and I must make my presentation match it.
In the preparation, I tried to make my presentation easy to follow. My teammates provided many beneficial suggestions, such as using guide postings, making statistics into context, remembering key points other than speech memorization, summarizing in the end etc.
The big day finally came and I was more excited than nervous. When it was my turn, I spoke loud to calm my nerves. I emphasized our goal and kept the audience informed that I had three points to share. But I could not remember whether I made the whole picture by mentioning the first, second and the third point when they came into places. The survey statistics were put into context and my own experience was added to make it more convincing.
However, being nervous remains my biggest weakness. The pace of my speaking is still a bit fast. More eye contact, gestures and facial expressions could be used. Some powerful words could be employed to show my enthusiasm. The scroll in my hand should be replaced by the laser pointer to make it more professional and less distracting. Also, I did not answer one of the questions politely, being anxious.
On the whole, I really enjoyed the presentation. I would like to thank my teammates Calvin and Lynette (and our demonstrator as wellJ), without whom such an amazing experience would never happen.
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ReplyDeleteWang Chen, I was pleasantly surprised at the 'different' Wang Chen I saw on Thursday - it was as if you'd undergone metamorphosis and emerged a butterfly from the chrysalis.
ReplyDeleteIn truth, you weren't very confident speaking in front of an audience at the beginning of the semester. On Thursday, I saw a significantly different Wang Chen who stood in front of the class.
So what happened in-between? You'd accurately pointed it out: the wonderful idea that spurred you on to ensure that your presentation matches up. Your firm belief in the proposed solution and your enthusiasm for the proposal was what sealed your success for you; you demonstrated to the audience that you (and your team members) have the passion and the commitment to bring the proposal to fruition. And of course as we all could see that day, passion was contagious.
So you've got the right formula there - passion in the topic that you were to deliver. What are next would be practice, practice and more practice.
I'm glad that the connection and camaraderie you felt with your team members flamed the passion, and the affiliation bolstered your confidence; that's one of the advantages of working in teams, that when students really work on refining their interpersonal communication skills to foster good working relationships with their team members, that the whole learning experience becomes a very valuable and wonderful one.
You have also very accurately pointed out areas you can continue to work on, for instance fluency and non-verbal cues. I saw good effort on your part to modulate your speaking, I saw the use of gestures and appropriate facial expressions, and I could see very appropriate strategies used to engage the audience. You ought to give yourself a pat on the back for a job well-done, Wang Chen.
I truly enjoyed your presentation!
Hi Wang Chen,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your presentation on Thursday. Though I can see that you are a little nervous that day, but aren't we all? Still, I guess that's probably one of the main points that we have to work on. I like the way you put across some of the points, injecting some humour into it. I do remember the class laughing at some point.
As for the Q&A, I felt you did manage the questions well. Though being a little anxious at first, you were able to pull urself back right after that and not let anxiety take total control through the whole question.
Overall, I felt that it was an interesting presentation =).
Thank you so much Ms. Lim. I am so grateful for your comment and encouragement. I will keep what you said in mind and continue to improve my presentation skills. Thank you once again, Ms. Lim!
ReplyDeleteHi Yongwei,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the encouragement. Let’s keep on improving our presentation skills.