ES2007S: Reflection on Oral Presentation

Oral presentation (OP) ended on Tuesday for me, and it was a load off my shoulders. The preparation towards OP has certainly allowed me to learn several lessons.

As a preparation for the final OP, we had a mock OP that allowed us to present in front of another group. I'm usually bad at finding words at the last minute, so I prepared a script for OP and memorized it before presenting. At the end of the mock OP, the comment I got was that I was a bit fidgety during my presentation. We gave comments to our group members and members of the other group as well. The most common problems were the excessive usage of fillers and to keep referring to scripts, all of which are issues that can be eliminated with more practice.

Then came Friday, where two groups had their final OP. I remember Brad saying that during OP, the audience's attention should be on the speaker, not on the slides. Hence, it is important to engage the audience via body language and eye contact, and it would be even better if the speaker can just speak to the audience without referring to the slides. We also talked about whether it would be better to present with or without writing and memorizing a script beforehand. (I think only 1 of the presenters that day did not come up with a script before presenting.) The advantage of memorizing a script before presenting is that you'll probably be very fluent when you speak. However, the down side is that you may be caught in a situation when your mind goes blank and you forget your speech and hence, be caught in a situation where there is an awkward silence while you are trying to recall the things to say. This would not happen if we only remembered only the main points of the presentation and made up our speech as we present.

Finally, it was my group's turn to present. After what we learnt last Friday, I decided to take a risk and present without memorizing the script even though I had one written. There were times when I couldn't find the words to say and hence, repeated what was written in the slides. There were also times when my group mates observed that I broke eye contact with the audience when I was trying to recall my points. Also, I thought I used a fair bit of fillers (but no comments were made on that), and I actually felt nervous and thought I spoke quite fast. To my surprise, the comment I got from the class was that it was good that I helped to slow down the pace of my group's presentation.

So, having completed OP, I think that most of the problems that we face during presentation, such as the usage of fillers and our body language, can be changed with more practice. With more practice and confidence, I also think that we will learn to present without having to write scripts beforehand!