Oral presentation done! WOOHOO!

I must admit that in today’s oral presentation (OP), I was extremely nervous! There were butterflies in my stomach while my team members were presenting! I really did not want to screw up in today’s presentation as I did not want to affect my team’s scores and of course, this OP contributes to 20% of my final grade. >.<

I rehearsed a number of times before today’s OP and I must admit that I was very worried as my portion required me to cover quite a heavy content and I took about 8 minutes during my rehearsals. I was worried that I might show bad time management today. Luckily, I managed to finish my speech in about 7 minutes today!

I think some of the good points in my presentation today are that I had good voice projection and my tone was not monotonous as I took the effort to emphasize certain key points in my presentation by slowing down and speaking even louder in certain sentences! I hope that the audience felt the same way too! Also, I thought that I tried my best to speak confidently and passionately about my content while maintaining eye contact with the audience and trying not to look at the screen. (I guess it was useful for me to read garrreynold's delivery tips the day before OP) But I do admit that I was very afraid of looking at a person into his/her eyes though and so, I tend to glance at each group and Brad. Nevertheless, I really tried to hide my nervousness and appear relaxed and natural as much as possible. Also, I was more conscious about my non verbal body movements today. (I tend to move a lot when I’m nervous) I am also very glad that my team showed good time management as we managed to stick to presenting within 20 minutes. Also, all of us tried to stand nearer to the class so that we can be seen more clearly.

However, I felt that I sort of failed to invoke a sense of humour in the audience when I mentioned that networking is a good way to meet one’s potential spouse. HAHA! Oh well, I still continued on as usual. Also, one major part that I can improve on is to do away without my help notes in my hands! I understand that one has to internalize (not memorize) the content of one’s presentation but I was EXTREMELY afraid that I would forget the key messages which I wanted to convey to my audience. Hence I still chose to have the paper in my hands while presenting for emergency purpose. :D Nevertheless, I tried my best to internalize my content before the presentation and NOT to refer to the cards in my hands as much as possible today! I love Ivan and XiangMin for being able to speak without reference to any notes. (I need more practice in this part!)

Also, I was quite taken aback by the questions asked by my fellow classmates. I tried to answer the questions to the best of my ability but I do admit that I depend on Ivan quite a bit to help me with some of the difficult questions raised. Nevertheless, I hoped that I still appeared to be confident during the QnA session though. (XiangMin, I am very sorry that you did not have a chance to answer the questions as most questions targeted the recommendation portion which Ivan and I were more familiar with) I understand that the audience may have doubts in our recommendation as I mentioned the recommendation portion rather briefly due to the lack of time. But I hope that Brad and my classmates are interested in our team’s proposal though! :P (I have a question: Did I move my hands a lot while speaking? I think I did but I am not very sure about it)

To my team: THANK YOU for all your hard work! (Xiang Min for coming out with the powerpoint template and Ivan for inserting the pictures and finding the video) I thought that Team S.I.X did better than I expected! :D (At least the video injected some smiles in the audience!)

P.S I bothered to dress up today for the first time in ES class HAHA!