#8 - Final Reflection

In the twinkling of an eye, we have come to the end of this module ES2007S. Working on this module has been a tough yet fruitful process for me. To be honest, I was quite reluctant to take this module in the first place (actually I have mentioned this in the first lesson if you can still remember :p) for fear of having to speak up. But I have to say, I have indeed learned a lot of useful skills and knowledge which have enhanced my interpersonal relations as well as my personal development.

Being an extremely reserved person, I face much difficulty in interacting and communicating with others. Nevertheless, this module has trained me to voice out my opinion and to work with people whom I am not familiar with (and become familiar with them!). I was a little apprehensive initially, but through the repeated practices, I have become more comfortable with speaking out and more open to people.

I used to have the jitters whenever I need to deliver a presentation, but this module has prepared me to become more adequate in this area. Not that I can overcome my nervousness now, but having a better idea of how I should carry myself and more practices have given me more confidence. With these skills, I can hide some of my anxiety and at least “pretend” to be professional even if I am not up to standard yet. I believe long-term practices would be necessary for one to develop into a professional speaker, so meanwhile just let me pretend to be one first!

“Communication works for those who work at it.” – John Powell


Honing one's communication skills requires conscientious and continuous effort, and I strongly believe in this now that I have experienced it. Practice can really make perfect, so let us be on our way to becoming a professional communicator!

#7 - Reflection on Oral Presentation

Reflecting on my performance in the final presentation, I am glad that my presentation skills have improved from the previous attempt. Prior to the presentation, I went through the content repeatedly to familiarize myself with it so that I would not rely too much on the script. Indeed, during the presentation, I could present most of the content without the script and thus was able to maintain eye contact with the audience. However, there were still several instances when I forgot my points and had to frantically search through my script to recall them.

As advised by Ms Happy, my strength lies in having a clear and loud voice. Hence, I built on this plus point by varying my intonation to stress on the important points. I have also made an effort to highlight key words on the screen with the laser pointer. As compared to the previous attempt, my usage of the pointer has improved, although I did not control it well at the beginning due to my nervousness.

As a team, I felt that we have performed reasonably well even though it was not up to our expectations. I believe we have structured the content in a clear and coherent way to bring our message across, and there was also cohesiveness between each of our content. However, we seemed to have elaborated too much on our points such that the time limit was exceeded slightly. We did not perform well during the Q&A session too as we lacked coordination in answering the questions.

All in all, this presentation has taught me the importance of team work and valuable presentation skills which can be put to good use in my FYP presentation. Through more practices, I hope to further improve on my presentation skills so that I can deliver a presentation more confidently and effectively in the future.