The Oral Presentation – In Retrospect

I was never the public-speaking sort. You may argue that nobody is, but I actively and passionately avoided it. In school, I never had to do any presentations because I’d hide behind the person sitting in front of me (which was always easy to do) if the teacher ever wanted someone to come in front of the class and speak.

To talk about how I moved from that person, to the person you saw in front of class last Monday is to talk about an unexpected journey of self-growth and great friendships in a period of just a few days.

THURSDAY. TUTORIAL ROOM. 1145 HRS

When we first sent our slides to each other a few days before, we thought they were just fine. After watching the first two groups however, we realized we were wrong – we needed to give our slides some major facelifts to make it look half as good as the other groups’! And fast.

THURSDAY. CENTRAL FORUM. 1900 HRS

This resulted in a frantic meeting at central forum at 7pm the same day. Everyone’s faces were grim. From 7pm to 12 that night, we deleted massive amounts of text off our slides, grilled each other on the content of our separate parts, and tried to make our slides look professional. Tensions were high, it was easy to get discouraged and we had to keep motivating each other to keep our spirits up (apparently Lin Hui’s method of motivation was to feed me “century egg”, which, she told me with a serious face after I'd eaten it, was “made by fermenting in horse urine”).

SUNDAY. TUTORIAL ROOM. 1900 HRS

We met again Sunday night, and did quite a few full-runs of the entire presentation. In those rehearsals, I referred to my notes as little as possible, hoping I could do the same on that day.

We really did prepare as much as we could as a group, and credit goes to all my team mates for doing it with heart. One weakness in our preparation however was that we focused so much on our content and ensuring our slides had as less text as possible, that we neglected to add imagery to make it look visually enticing. Since our topic was not exactly as exciting as radio broadcasting, failure to add in pictures to help the audience retain our content could have been a rather unfortunate oversight on our part.

MONDAY. TUTORIAL ROOM. 1100 HRS

The Vans had just presented, and had done a good job of it too. I looked at them enviously; they looked so relaxed. 10 minutes later, it was our turn. Valarie went first and I thought she did wonderfully, and so did Thu Win and Lin Hui. When it was my turn, I remember walking up to the center with my heart thumping. I also remember being nervous - which was ultimately my downfall. I’m so disappointed that I practised so hard during rehearsals and at home without looking at my notes much, but when it came down to the actual day, my nerves got the better of me and I kept looking at my notes - even when I didn’t need to. I have a feeling I did better in peer teaching – I was definitely more confident. I didn’t even have reason to be nervous the second time – I knew every single one of my audience members much better!

In hindsight, I believe I just psyched myself out. If only I had approached it with calm and focus, like Lin Hui. Although I know I didn’t live up to my own standards, I don’t think I did all that terribly either. I managed to not fumble my words and maintain eye contact, things that are quite hard to do when you can hear your heart beating against your eardrums.

Plus, I’ve learned so much more than I ever thought I would in the whole process. I feel like I could present now even to a completely alien audience with renewed confidence and zest. There is always much more to work on of course, but I know I've come further than I ever dreamed I would- for a small-town girl who avoided public speaking like the plague because she was afraid she’d never be any good at it.