Final Reflection on Learning

ES 2007S is definitely one of the courses whereby I experienced the deepest learning curve. The peer teaching has been useful. I find topics such as how to write business letters effectively, how to convey good news and bad news, how to manage cultural conflicts and how to prepare for an interview particularly relevant and helpful.

Valuable though other aspects of the course are, I feel that I benefited most from the many opportunities that I have to speak and present to an audience in this class. These hands-on experiences has markedly improved my oral presentation skills and it is thus that I choose to reflect on this one area of communication skill in my final blog entry.

While my last presentation on Singapore’s birthrate was far from perfect and there are definitely areas that I can work on, I believe I have come a long way. I remember that in my very first dry run of my peer teaching on communication channel, Professor Jaidev and my fellow classmates commented that my demeanor was too relax, and sometimes it may come across as arrogance. This is an invaluable feedback as never would I worry about looking arroganct when in fact I am so stressed and nervous on stage.

I believe the fact that I look arrogant is primarily due to my informal tone of voice and my slouching posture. In my second peer teaching on Good News/ Bad News, I took note of that and was told that I have improved. Still, my presentation then was far from seasoned. I have always been a nervous speaker and my nervousness is reflected in my body language. My hand gestures were very loose and jerky, I fidgeted right from the beginning and I still slouched. Furthermore, I also tend to find comfort in the screen. In many occasions, I unintentionally, spoke to the screen rather than to the audience and in three occasions, namely when I did the exercise, shared the Boston College Rejection letter and explained the Cookery example, I read straight from the screen. The former is due to a lack of confidence and the latter due to the lack of consideration when making the PowerPoint.  I should have been more aware of how long the examples were and extracted only the main points.

In terms of delivery, I also had a lot of room for improvement. In my second peer teaching, I started speaking while I was still moving to the centre of the stage. In general, I could have had more eye contact with the audience and have eye contact with more of the audience (I tend to focus on the right hand side). Furthermore, I also slurred on some occasions, particularly when I felt like I was repeating or when I think the audience knew what I wanted to say. For example, I slurred while saying “then you carry on with your main idea…you can prepare for your orientation camp by” or while saying “…you can position the negative information in the middle of the body...so as to reduce the emphasis on it”. Not only did it sound unprofessional, it was also wrong to assume that the audience knew what you were saying.

In terms of inflections, my voice tended to be rather monotonous, although to my credit, I tried to sound more dynamic by using “oh”s (e.g. when I was saying “Oh, we only serve in specific locations such as…”.) Upon listening to my delivery on video, however, I felt that it was too informal.

Keeping in mind that I should only talk when I am in the centre of the stage and facing the audience, avoid reading from the screen, have bolder and more confident body gestures, my third presentation was a marked improvement from the last. I spoke only when I was ready, and my opening was also more impactful and a clearer transition from the last speaker in that it was able to induce a few laughter.

I was also much more confident in terms of body language. I did not slouch or fidget. My hand gestures were bigger and more definite. I was able to use my hands to emphasize statistics, (e.g. “over 50%...”). In addition, I made use of Professor Jaidev’s suggestion to use pauses and signposts when I say “Next, let us talk about gender differences”. I also had more tonal inflection and was able to stress on certain words.

However, I still lack in many areas. For example, I still spend too much at the screen and I still hadn’t broken the habit of speaking to the screen. While my eye contact with the audience improved as the presentation went on, I focus too much on the right side. When passing the time on to Bernice, I also kept my eyes on my group mates rather than the audience.

Last but not least, although I was quite fluent in general, I appeared a bit flustered when I explained how our survey consist mostly of dichotomous and check the box answers (4:45-4:53).

ES 2007S has been an invaluable course to me and I shall continue strive to become a better speaker.