Reflection on ES2007

Frankly speaking, I planned to S/U this module at the time I decided to take it. Because it is my final year, I am quite busy with my Honors Year Project, job applications and CFA test. I took this module because I thought I could spend less time on it, but I was completely wrong. I put more efforts in this module than any other core modules I am taking this semester. Nevertheless, I do think I have learnt a lot from it.

Firstly, this module has sharpened my writing skills. To be frank, before I took this module, the last time I wrote something rather than report was during my bridging course before college. For almost four years, I had never written anything to express my thoughts and feelings. This module provides me a good opportunity to think critically and express my ideas in written form. By blogging weekly, I have gradually learnt how to apply 7Cs in writing. It will definitely benefit me when I enter the workforce after graduation.

Secondly, my communication skills were further improved. The module not only taught me the theoretical knowledge on interpersonal communication, but also allowed me to practice during in-class discussions and project meetings. During my job interviews, I do feel that I applied what I learnt from this module such as 7Cs, encoding and decoding.

Thirdly, the discussions and presentations boosted my confidence in conversing in English. In my daily life, I do not speak English often. Even sometimes I have to speak English, the conversations are usually casual or standard. This module offered me great chances to practice my spoken English, especially during project meetings when topics discussed could be quite serious. I deeply feel that I am more confident now, but I can clearly understand that I have to practice more in my daily life in order to be fluent in English.

During the last lesson, Ms Goh gave us the table of transferable skills. I was pretty amazed that we had learnt, practiced and improved so many skills during this short period of time. I do not regret taking this module and spending so much time on it! J

Reflection on Oral Presentation

In this reflection, I would like to thank my teammates first. Thank you so much for the supports and encouragement, and thank you for bearing my poor English. :p

For the team performance, I believe our content was relevant, clear and concise. We had quite creative approach, and I think our presentation was quite well structured. Overall, I am satisfied with our work. However, there are still certain parts we could do better. For example, we could assign someone to conduct the Q&A session beforehand so that it would be more organized. Moreover, our PowerPoint slides looked less professional compared to other groups’. Maybe we should have spent more time on it so that our presentation would be more appealing.

For my individual performance, I personally feel that I did not present as well as I did during my peer teaching. Maybe because I was not fully prepared, which made me feel less confident. During the Q & A session, I think I failed to organize my thoughts and express my ideas clearly, which I believe made “professors” a bit confused. I did have some hand gestures, which was an improvement from my peer teaching. However, I still believe it could be further improved, like I should have made some movement during the presentation. In addition, there was also some feedback from my peer teaching saying that I spoke too fast and failed to project my voice. I paid attention to these problems this time, I hope I did improve a bit.

I do think the presentation opportunities from this module have boosted my confidence in presenting ideas in public. I used to scare of presentation, but now I believe I am also capable of delivering my ideas and convincing the audience. Nevertheless, there are still a lot of presentation skills I have to learn and practice. I will try to seize every opportunity in the future to improve my presentation skills. J