Thursday, April 14, 2011

My reflection on my Oral Presentation

In my opinion, I would rate my performance during my group’s oral presentation last Thursday (7/4/11), as a 7 upon 10. This scale is constructed with 5 being the quality of the typical oral presentation which I tend to give (based on my memories of presentations given during previous modules). A rating of 1 would be me giving an absolutely horrible presentation while 10 would be basically a perfect and mind-blowing presentation. Hence, I would say that I think I did above average for my oral presentation and am, in general, happy with my performance =). However, I do believe that there is still much room for improvement. An elaboration on this would be in the section titled “Weaknesses and Future Improvements”

Strengths
Since I’ve had the luxury of multiple rehearsals, I believed that I was well prepared for my presentation. This resulted in me feeling that one of the main strengths of my presentation was that my verbal messages were presented quite fluently. Also, I felt that my non-verbal messages, which I believed were communicated primarily via my hand gestures, effectively complemented my verbal messages and I am quite pleased with this. Lastly, I felt that I projected my voice effectively throughout my presentation and this is really the main cause of my satisfaction with my presentation. This is because I’ve received feedback on two occasions, one from Brad during my peer teaching lesson, and the other from my lecturer in a Freshman Seminar module which I took in year one, that the volume of my voice was not loud enough when I was speaking. I’m thus glad that I’ve managed to speak at an appropriate volume. I liked my slides as well, as I felt that its simple layout was easy on the eyes and yet, it still managed to be visually attractive. The credit for this achievement goes to Michael who designed my slides for me =). Having a computer engineer in my team rocks, as you can see haha.

Weaknesses and Future Improvements
Although I spoke fluently in general, the perfectionist in me was not happy that there were a few times when I stumbled over my words and when I had to pause longer than I should to recall my points. Thankfully though such moments were rare (I think). If it was not, please let me know so that I can improve in this area =). Thus, I felt it did not seriously compromise the effectiveness of my presentation. I am persuaded that the greatest weakness of my presentation was that my slides were not always linked to my spoken words in a coherent and clear manner. As such, the audience may have felt confused during certain parts of my presentation. This could have caused them to be unsure of whether their attention should be on my slides or on me in order for them to fully grasp the message that I was trying to put across. This is something which I think Brad has highlighted after my group’s presentation was done. As such, I would really like to improve in this area. One possible way to do so would be for me to scrutinize my slides extremely closely to check for the existence of a clear and logical link between my slides and my speech. Also, I could present in front of different groups of people before the actual presentation date, so that I can get feedback on the coherency and clarity of my slides with respect to my speech.



Comments and constructive criticism are most welcome! =) 

13 comments:

  1. Hey Jonathan!

    Your presentation was impressive! Like you've mentioned, you've had a good and clear projection of your voice. You also used good hand gestures in conjunction with your verbal indicators to signal transitions in your presentation. All these are very much appreciated and it makes your presentation much easier to follow through.

    However, I felt that your slides had too many conclusions. You were concluding on one point, then another slide on conclusions came up again, and another... So it gave me the impression that the slides were a mere compilation of ideas and there wasn't a central idea proposed. The conclusions were also very lengthy and at times were just a mere reiteration of previous points mentioned by the other speakers. It's a very tricky issue because you do not want to repeat the points, yet you do not want to introduce complicated new pointers that confuses your audience. Perhaps if you need to do conclusions in the future, you can try to offer a new perspective on the same issue.

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  2. Hey Jon! =)

    I thought you spoke really well! You were fluent and explained your part very well so I was able to understand what you were saying=). However, I felt that you were a little monotonous at times and it felt like your sentences were strung together so it sounded a little unnatural.

    Nonetheless, I thought you did really well and I really liked your stance! =)

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  3. Hey Jon!

    When I listened to you present the other day, I was so proud of you, and so happy for you! The improvements that you have shown through this presentation are extremely commendable! I have seen your growth from one who presents awkwardly in year 1 to one who presents with confidence now! I daresay that you did engage the audience with your eye contact, and I felt at points that you were talking to me directly, which is excellent! You also don't seem to have memorised your script-or if you did memorise, did not show that you did. haha.. You were engaging and managed to convey the points you made clearly to the audience.

    One thing you can improve on is your posture, specifically, standing posture. You tend to slouch while standing, and it does not look presentable.

    Your willing-to-learn attitude has brought you far. Continue to work hard to improve! =)

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  4. Hello Jonathan! I think you have presented well. You do not seemed nervous and you spoke well during the OP. However, I think you can smile more and try to look more energised.

    One commendable point that really impressed me is your quick response to Brad's question. You have answered to the question very well. Trying to level up your proposal to a global scale. :D Good try! This shows that you are very calm and can think very fast even there are any unexpected questions raised.

    From your blog post, you are very humble and willing to learn from criticism. I like your learning attitude. :) I will suggest you to learn yoga if you tend to slouch. Me too, I have the same problem. But I try to overcome it with yoga and wushu. But FYI, doing yoga and wushu maybe quite painful sometimes, especially when you need to practice certain postures and stretching of the muscles.

    Hope this helps you and happy to know you in es2007s! :D

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  5. Hello Jon! As said during the mock OP, you were really fluent and confident when presenting and I'm glad it was the same during the actual OP.

    As Adeline has pointed out, I also liked how you reacted really well to Brad's question and it made me really impressed by how you handled it. A point to work on would be your posture. It would really look more presentable if you had pulled back your shoulders instead of slouching. But in all,good job :)

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  6. Hey Jonathan, I think you presented really well. You were clear and concise and easy to follow. Also you really knew what you were talking about that is well prepared. Only negative would be you looked at the slides quite often and that was a little distracting but overall I would rate your performance definitely more than a 7.

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  7. WoW! I am amazed how much you have improved in your communication skills since our day 1 in NUS. Since we have known each other since year 1 and had taken many modules together, I can testify for the sheer amount of efforts you have been putting into presentation skills. I can be in peace for introducing this module to you last semester.

    Your voice projection has improved and I was able to hear you loud and clear. You are more fluent and coherent than 1 year ago and you can really engage the audience with eye contact. Therefore, you are able to deliver a presentation much better now.

    I agree that you tendency to slouch brings down your overall persuasiveness a little. Doing exercise like running and swimming would help to alleviate the back problem. In addition, try standing in front of a full body length mirror and practice your speech. You can observe yourself and adjust your posture according with this method.

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  8. Hey Jon,

    Your blog post has an interesting layout where you clearly defined you strengths and weaknesses under specific headings. This made it easier for me to read (:

    I could see that you made a conscientious effort to improve your presentation skills and it has definitely paid off. Your presentation was very much better than your peer teaching. You also paced yourself really well. It was apparent that you were loud, clear and well-prepared for the presentation. However, you lacked eye contact with everyone as I felt that during the presentation, you only maintained eye contact with a specific group of people. Overall, I am really impressed by how much you have grown as a professional communicator.

    Keep it up bro!

    Cheers!

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  10. Thanks so much for all your encouraging comments and suggestions for improvement! =) I will try my best to incorporate your suggestions into my presentation style so that I may further develop my public speaking skills.

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  11. Thank you so much for sharing this great blog.Very inspiring and helpful too.Hope you continue to share more of your ideas.I will definitely love to read. good presentation skills

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