Now that the oral presentation is over, I can finally breathe a sigh of relief and thank god that everything went smoothly. Phew~
Our powerpoint presentation is one of things I like most about this research project. I have to thank HweeTeng for creating such an attractive and professional looking visual aid.
With regards to my oral presentation, I have made an effort to slow down my pace of speech, as I've been told that I speak too fast in previous dry runs. I think the main reason why I speak so fast is due to my anxiety to get the presentation over and done with, lest I somehow make a fool of myself, perhaps by pronouncing certain words wrongly, or worse, forgetting what I was supposed to say. To overcome this, I spent quite some time practicing what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it, until this knowledge is “internalized”.
Furthermore, in an attempt not to be too monotonous, I also consciously reminded myself to inject emphasis on certain words and phrases. I thought I did, but looking at the video I realized I couldn’t actually hear the emphasis that well myself?
As for non-verbal cues, I think I did not have a lot of gestures (I kept my hands close to my body because I was actually too nervous to gesture naturally). But I believe I managed to maintain good eye contact with the audience.
If you guys have any feedback for me on how to further improve my presentation skills, please feel free to comment. Thanks!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Stella!
ReplyDeleteSorry about removing the previous post because i wrote it thinking it was Jake's blog, haha!
I would describe your delivery of the presentation as very calm cool and collected.
It seemed like you had a lot to cover but you did take it a notch slower than when I heard you rehearsing.
Maybe you could try having some deliberate pauses to break up the sentences into sizable chunks, that way it might be easier to place emphasis on certain phrases.
But well done in general! You actually got down all the points you intended to cover, or at least that's how it sounded to me!
Hello Stella. I personally think you are one of the most fluent speakers in the class. In your delivery, all your words were properly pronounced and the overall delivery was clear.
ReplyDeleteThe pace of your delivery, though, could be slower. I thought that you talked faster than usual. The nerves might be the cause. I have the same problem too during my rehearsals.
Perhaps you can try deep breathing through the diaphragm prior to the presentation to calm your nerves. I learnt it from one of the counselors who mentioned that deep breathing helps to clear away the tension.
Hope this helps. (:
Hey Stella,
ReplyDeleteGreat job to you and your group! The whole thing was seamless and seriously you guys stressed me out that much more.
Throughout your presentation you had a very good stance and very minimal hang gestures, which is definitely not a distraction and helped me concentrate on what you were saying.
You were most definitely not monotonous, don't worry about that (= and I thought it was a good choice in your group's order of speakers to have you as the last, it went that much further in persuading me.
Hello group mate!
ReplyDeleteI always feel that your emphasis on important words is good! So don't worry about being monotonous!
It was great working with you and Jake! We were an excellent team! :D
Hwee Teng
@greg: thanks for saying that my delivery was calm,cool and collected. but no thanks to you for making me confused with your first comment that was deleted!
ReplyDelete@luqman: thanks for commenting! yes I think it was partly due to nerves as well. I will definitely take your suggestion of deep breathing into account next time!
@veekay: thank you for your comments! hahaha, i just noticed you said I had very minimal "hang" gestures. it was just as well that our presentation parts correspond to the parts of the proposal we were responsible for, I am glad that we are able to convince you of our proposal!
@hweeteng: groupmate!! it was great working with you and jake too! and I really really like and admire your talent in doing the ppt slides as well as formatting. without you our proposal and ppt slides would not have been so awesome possum!
Heyy Stella!
ReplyDeleteYay for the end of oral presentation! It's quite a long time ago but i finally got to the commenting for the blogs :P
In my opinion you being 'monotonous' is just the way you speak and not a fault. In fact I feel it sounds professional and not as at nervous like what you said. As for hand gestures as long as you do not hold them together all the time i think not moving them is fine, minimal is good too! But overall i think it was a really good presentation as you showed confidence and knowledge of what you are presenting :))
Stella:
ReplyDeleteAs a group:
Persuasiveness:
The first part about seriousness of food dependency was not a very strong argument to me. Brief explanations about the concept of urban farming could be given first since it is not a common idea. Similar ideas like container farming, hydroXX, ect could be explained as well. Just like how stella explained the concept of urban heat and island effect.
Story flow:
The structure of the problem-solution set was clear and easy to follow. However, an outline of presentation at the start would help.
PowerPoint was nicely designed, simple and elegant. Personally, I would prefer more pictures to be added. It is good that the numbers which can be hard to capture were stated in large fonts in the slides.
The stage props helped to grab audiences’ attention.
The conclusion was forceful and persuasive. It would also be nice to include rooftop farming into future work.
Lastly, I think it will be less distracting if there were no member standing behind the presenter.
Just a short one for you:)
You may smiles more often and add more gestures. What you did was actually fine under most of the circumstances. However the two team members before you were extremely passionate, so...Other than that, everything was very good. Good voice projection, confident and good eye contact.
Great job!
Susan
@zoe: thank you for your comments! i'll keep in mind about what you said regarding hand gestures :)
ReplyDelete@susan: thank you for your feedback. i think my serious expression and lack of gestures are due to nerves. i'll definitely keep your suggestion in mind and make a conscious effort to smile more in future presentations.
Hey hey hey Stella,
ReplyDeleteWhat can I say Stella, you had the very good elocution. When I meant very good I didn't mean absolute terms, I meant in relative terms, as when I compare you to every other girl in class of Group 4 and 10. Yours was pretty good, up there with Zoe. You and Zoe are the top 2 elocutionists, and therefore top 2 female presenters who seem to come across as confident, persuasion, energetic, powerful, passionate, knowledgeable, and generally everything good.
Your posture was good, you stood fixed at one spot, you didn't ever fumble, your sentences were, oh my god, so beautifully structured and so world class, with picture-perfect grammatical and syntax structure, pretty much the way I do things with my presentation too!! Stella, I hadn't known you were so good, you deserve the top award for best female presenter in Brad's ES2007s ( and I'm speaking in relative terms when I say best!!)
In short, Stella, you still have a long way to go to reach world class AMerican and British standards in elocution and volume and inflection, as well as, gesture. Your grammar and syntax is already world class, I must admit, but these other areas of the presentation, though good enough to win you best ES2007s presenter, isn't even half of world class standards yet!
So that l leave you with praises, but I also leave you with room for improvement!
Cheers to Stella!
@mark: thanks mark, for your comments and praises :) i'll certainly keep your words in mind and improve on the other aspects of presentation.
ReplyDelete