My journey through ES2007s

My journey through this module has been a real emotional rollercoaster ride venturing into the unknown. Starting off in a small class of 6 students under Ms Happy Goh, Kesleen and I were informed that the class might have to be shut down due to insufficient students. We cheered when we got the good news that we could continue on after all, but 2 more lessons after that, we were informed that our class had to shut down again. And that’s how Kesleen and I arrived in Brad’s class!

I was rather apprehensive at first; we were the new ‘kids’ on the block and I had no idea how my classmates would be like. Brad was unlike most teachers I have ever seen. In my very first class, he took me out of my comfort zone by pairing me with someone I did not know. Thankfully Shinye was rather nice and friendly to me. I had expected to be paired with Kesleen since most teachers would rather go with the flow rather than poke the hornet’s nest. Had Brad not done that, I think the class would be split into many different cliques rather than the nice integration we see now. Furthermore, all my classmates called Brad by name and not Sir or Mr Blackstone. I found this perplexing and was not fully comfortable addressing him as Brad at first.

My first real assignment was to present on the wiki. We had no idea what NUS wiki was and it sounded terrifyingly foreign and difficult. Furthermore, it could not be found in the textbook which I had bought for this module unlike other topics like resumes or application letters. As a result, I had no ‘proper’ reference materials that I could depend on. On hindsight, I’m glad that I got that topic. It allowed me to expand my horizons and gave me the opportunity to make really creative slides. Had I done one of the standard topics, I’m sure I would have continued in my old ways by simply dumping all the information from the textbook on the slides and ending up with extremely boring slides.

Next up were the application letters and resumes. I have never written a resume before because I felt that I did not have any relevant job experiences and hence nothing to write in my resume. However, that concept was thrown out of the window and I found that I could write a strong resume even without any job experiences. I am quite happy to have achieved this even though the resumes were not graded.

I felt that I was different from most of my classmates taking this course. Many of them took this course in order to gain a competitive edge when looking for a job in future. However, I already have a job as a teacher and I took each assignment as a practice on presenting myself. I found that it helped me to gain confidence, especially when standing in front of a large audience to speak. This was something I was never able to do; or maybe I could have, just that I never had the opportunity to do so.

At the end of the course, I found myself to be a much more confident person. Furthermore, I am much more aware of my actions. For example, now when I’m nodding along to what people are saying, I know that I am practicing active listening. So thank you Brad, for helping us grow and giving us a different learning experience. It has certainly been an interesting ride while it lasted!

Reflection on oral presentation

As the applause died away, I heaved a sigh of relief. My journey through this module is nearing its end and I have managed to cross this final hurdle, albeit with some hiccups along the way. Looking back at what our group has managed to accomplish so far, it seems frightening that one month’s worth of labour on the proposal will be reflected in a short 20 minutes oral presentation. We wanted our presentation to be impactful and yet simple, so that the audience will not have a hard time understanding what we are trying to achieve. For my part, I felt that I managed to accomplish some of what I set out to do, but there are certainly things that I wished could have been improved.

The Powerpoint Slides
I made my slides as interesting as possible by using pictures to grab attention. Most of my slides do not have words as I do not want the audience to be divided between reading what is on the screen and listening to what I have to say. In fact, my group members all followed this style in order to maintain uniformity. Furthermore, the effective use of proper imagery has subliminal effects on the audiences’ sub consciousness, helping me to bring my ideas across more effectively.

I made use of the different animations to bring more zest to the presentation while bearing in mind the fact that too many animations would tend to become overbearing. I am quite satisfied with my work on my slides. However, I do feel that my pie chart could have been improved by making use of a more professional looking pie chart. In fact, that was a recurrent problem among our slides. How could we make it as fun and interesting as possible yet maintaining a professional feel to it? That was a fine line that we had to tread and I think we tried our best to do that.

The Presentation
The actual presentation proved to be disastrous due to the technical errors which I failed to anticipate. Some of the videos could not be played because the format was not supported on the computer. I was unsettled by that and I started speaking too fast which is one of my greatest weakness. During the practice runs, I have been trying to slow down my talking speed but I fell into the same trap again. I managed to calm down only at the later part of the presentation and started speaking more slowly. My only saving grace was that I was able to give a generally fluent presentation. During the practice runs, I did not memorize my lines by heart but rather, concentrated more on presenting my ideas in an impromptu fashion. This paid off as it helped me to carry on speaking instead of being stuck when I forgot my script, which actually occurred a couple of times during the presentation. I also maintained good eye contact with the audience throughout but I did not notice if I was smiling. That would be one of my greatest weakness too, because I'm a rather dour person who can't maintain a fake smile to save my life. That is very disadvantageous for me because smiling is important in connecting with the audience.

One plus point for me is that I was quite familiar with my slides and was able to synchronize the transition of the slides with my speech without looking at the screen. Overall, I felt that our team had good time management as we all stuck to our maximum of 6 minutes of “air time” as rehearsed during our practice runs. However, I think that we could have done a better job during the question and answer segment by linking our answers with the research we had prepared for this segment. Furthermore, by hiding behind the desk seemed to suggest a certain degree of reluctance in engaging the audience which we certainly did not want. I realised that and moved out in order to interact more with the audience.

Overall, I feel that this has certainly been an important learning experience as it has given me greater confidence to present my ideas in front of a large audience. It has benefitted me a lot in terms of my development as a future teacher. I would like to thank my group members Kesleen and Zhi Peng who have been most cooperative and patient with my criticisms. The class has been a most wonderful and encouraging audience too. Lastly, kudos to Brad whose comments have played an instrumental role in shaping and refining our ideas.