Blog post #5: Reflection on Oral Presentation

So came the day for our group to present.  All the hours spend on preparation, all the effort that went into the proposal; it all came down to this moment, 2pm at our usual classroom. My team have practised thoroughly for our presentation, going through countless dry runs and giving feedback to one another. We could not have been better prepared than that day itself.

Personally for any presentation, I never fail to get overly anxious. This is also made worst by the fact that I was the first speaker for our presentation. The likelihood of fumbling was always at the back of my mind. However, the moment I started speaking, all the anxiety, and all the fear faded away. I felt like I was in total control of myself and my anxiety, everything felt so natural, so smooth flowing. I was in my own element.  I guess all the effort and time put into countless practises paid off and helped to instill a great deal of confidence in me.

I started off with my part; introducing the topic to the audience and then moving on to briefly explain the rationale for choosing the topic. I then went on to explain our very first recommendation that we have proposed. For our slides, we followed Dr Radhika’s advices and ensured that there were minimal words and bullet points for each slide. We also chose bright colours and neat animations to make the slides more attention grabbing. Overall I felt I delivered my part smoothly, with no major mistakes made along the way. Despite the fact that I had my script in my hands, I did not refer to them at all. This is because when I was presenting, I needed to make a conscious effort to maintain eye contact with my audience across the whole classroom. Hence, it was impossible to refer to my script as I would break eye contact with my audience. However, not being able to refer to my script was not an issue, because I had practised so many times that every line, every word seems to come out naturally. Throughout the presentation, I also made an effort to be more animated by including gestures and varying my tone whenever I am highlighting something important.  I refrained from using the laser pointer and instead, used my hands to point at sections of the slides which I found critical to be noted.

Now touching on some areas for improvement, personally I felt that I was going a little too fast as I was trying to finish my part within the stipulated time of five minutes per person. Perhaps for my subsequent presentations, I should not be too worried about my time limit as this may cause me to speed up my presentation. Another error which I seem to make for any presentation is that I tend to pronounce certain words quickly, resulting in poor articulation. This is an area for improvement and I will take note of it in my future presentations.

All in all, I felt that I have grown so much as a communicator, from being a nervous and shy speaker during my junior college days to someone who has the ability to give a presentation with confidence and gusto. I would really like to thank Dr Radhika and everyone else, especially my team mates, for playing a part in shaping me into the speaker that I am today. For without their feedback and guidance, I would not have improved as a speaker.