Monday, January 18, 2016

Presentation is one of the many channels in interpersonal communication. My strength in my presentation skill is that I am confident to present to a crowd. As for my weakness, I rely heavily on script for my presentation. There was this instance that I was chosen for a presentation that involved elaboration on holy song for my duty in my temple. Every speaker will be allocated 15 minutes for the whole presentation. One presentation consists of one read through by audience, elaboration on the meanings of the song by the speaker and singing of the song twice by the audience. Time allocation for each segment depends on the length of the song. I am still able to remember my horrid first presentation vividly.

Before the presentation, preparatory work must be done. In my case, I consulted one of the seniors in the temple to understand more about the meanings of the song. Thus I recorded notes on what he told me word for word. I memorized them so that I will able to present the content so as not to disgrace myself in front of audience. Before the presentation, I felt nervous and worried that I might screwed up. During presentation,my mind blanked out. I experienced stage fright as this was my first time, "er,hmphh,ar" were only words that came out from my mouth. As I could not elaborate further, I decided to end my presentation with the last segment of singing the song twice by the audience. After the presentation end, I walked down the aisle with mixed feelings. I was relieved that presentation was over and disappointed for not be able to present well.

Plucking courage to present was what I had done the best, and failure on conveying information was what I had done the worst. I analyzed my performance and approach after the presentation and realized that memorizing is not the best way. Understanding the holy songs meanings is the best way to present as I will be able to share on my understanding of the songs meanings. Besides that, the information that I want to convey to the audience must be processed first.Processes like packaging in terms of forming and arranging the sentence structures. Reviewing the sentences in terms of filtering and correcting grammar mistakes. These processes allows the information to be convey to the audience in order to achieve effective communication.

Commented from GROUP E:
Marcus
Lin Zaw

Commented from GROUP F:
Zong Hong
Mei Ying
Rati

Edited 06/02/2016

10 comments:

  1. Hi, Kok Zheng
    I think that it is very good for you to describe your experience in a story format. You clearly indicated the before, during and after of your experience.
    From your post, it seems that your strength is having confidence to present in front of a huge crowd. From what I understand about you, you do have confidence in presenting yourself and in what you do.
    For your weakness, maybe you can try explaining more about how your failure on elaboration of the holy songs affect your communication?

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  2. Hi Zong Hong, thank you for your constructive feedback. I had made the necessary adjustments to my reflection. Please read again and comment on what you think about the adjustments.

    Edited 21/01/2016

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  3. Hi Zheng, I liked how you used the story to build up upon the content. Using a past experience, is a good example to learn from, as you will be able to clearly reflect upon what you have done wrongly in the past, and make adjustments to it. From your post, I can see that you do alot of preparatory work into making sure things go well as planned. The confidence you had, allowed you to continue with your presentation despite being nervous about it. I believe everyone has experienced stage fright at least once in their lives and it is not as easy to overcome it.

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    1. I am glad that you liked my blog post. Thank you for your encouragement and comments!

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  5. Thanks for your effort in this initial post, Zheng. I appreciate the completeness of detail in your sharing a communication experience from your temple. What seems problematic to me is that you haven't framed the story within a reference to the task at hand (the assignment) or to your own reason for elaborating on this event from your past. You need to connect it directly to your discussion of your own communication skills. Instead, you just "jump into" the story, which might leave the uninformed reader feeling like they are lost as to your purpose.

    Aside from that, there are numerous language problems that detract:

    1) I memorized them so that i will able to present the content.... >>>
    I memorized them so that I WOULD able to present the content.... (predicting a future event from the past perspective requires WOULD)

    2) i consulted / i recorded / etc. >>> I consulted / I recorded / (capitalization)

    3) On the day before the presentation, a lot of thoughts ran through my mind, i felt nervous and worried that i might screwed up. >>>
    (run on sentence: pls see https://owl.english.purdue.edu/engagement/2/1/33/)

    4)During presentation, my mind blanked out when i want to elaborate on the meanings of the song... >>>
    (verb tense inconsistency --- you use both past and present forms in this sentence)

    5) After the presentation end, i walk down the aisle with mixed feelings. >>> (verb tense inconsistency --- you use both past and present forms in this sentence)

    6) Happy that the presentation was over and disappointed for not be able to present well. >>> (fragment)

    7)-- I believed that.... (verb tense?) >>> ?

    --- Besides that, the information that i want to convey to the audience must be processed first. >>> ?

    8) After the presentation, i analyzed my performance and approach,i realized that memorizing is not the best way. >>> (run on)

    9) Processes like packaging in terms of forming and arranging the sentence structures, filtering grammar mistakes. >>> (sentence fragment)

    10) After the processes, these allows the information to be convey to the audience in order to achieve effective communication. >>> (What does THESE refer to?)

    The beauty of writing on a blog is that nothing is etched in stone. I look forward to seeing how you can improve this.

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    1. Thank you Brad! I had edited based on the comments that you had given me. Please review it again and let me know what are the areas that I can improve on.

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  6. Hi Zheng

    I really like the way you describe your situation in detail and how you overcome. It will never easy to present something to large crowds especially you don't really understand what are you presenting.

    I believe that you have learn your lesson and don't make a same mistake again. You can do it ! Gambateh !!

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    1. Thank you Ya Wen for your encouragement! I am glad that you like the way I describe my situation.

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