The day has arrived for my group’s presentation! Days up to the day of presentation, I was feeling the jitters especially since the group before did so well. Practiced my script to my roomie Cass, my course mates, and even my family and asked them to provide me with feedback that can help me do better. Thank god nobody got tired hearing me speak (or maybe they were, but they did not mention).
My group was presenting on “the pitfalls of online webinar-style presentation” and as a presenter “what can you do to give engaging presentations”. The topic itself was more on the technical side and so one of the difficulty my group faced was coming up with a way to present the topic without boring the audience. We decided to incorporate skits and short stories, to bring across our points.
After our presentation, I was feeling a little disappointed as I thought our group could have done a lot better. Halfway through the presentation, I could honestly feel the energy level in the room dipped, and half of the audience were looking like they were bored of it already.
Some of the advices the others gave our group, which I thought made a lot of sense and could aid in our own future presentations as well.
1. More interaction with the audience. Direct them to the slides and then back.
2. Split the parts much more evenly and have a better balance when it came to presentation time. By having a evenly balanced show time, this will not diminish the other presenters value too.
3. When rehearsing, it will be good to be more critical with one another. By giving critical appraisal on how to improve, what to work on, what is good – this can help each other to move forward even better.
4. As a group, we should analyze and tap onto each other energy’s level as well. For those who are more soft spoken and have lower energy level, it will be good to ‘borrow’ the energy of others. This can help in maintaining and keeping the same volume level across all group members.
The class then ranked us in terms of our presentation and I was happy that I got ranked second, slightly behind Nicholas. Here is a summary of the comments which I received from the class on what was good (hence keep for future presentation) and bad (what I can improve) on my own presentation.
Based on the class comments, I was really very happy to hear that there has been an improvement in my presentation (especially when Claire said it!). The point I was most satisfied with was when they mentioned that my voice was well resonated. It felt like all the breathing and humming exercises worked. Previously when we did the reading exercise, my voice shape was of a circle, which did not reach the audience on my sides and it could not travel far too. Hence, it was heartening to hear that there has been an improvement.
I think my other group members did well too. Even though there were times when some of them tripped on their words, I think they bounced back and carried on fine. Claire took some time to address the issue on nervousness during presentation, which I am pretty sure many of us encounter and go through before every major presentation. Some tips which I gathered that I will probably put the good use in the future:
- Talking to the audience prior to the presentation. This can help the presenter get more familiar and comfortable with the situation, and perhaps ease some of the nervousness.
- Start by asking a question. This can help connect with the audience on a more personal level. The acknowledgement from the audience can also serve as a guide on who are the more supportive and friendly faces amongst the crowd.
- When you get nervous during a presentation: 1) think about the purpose and objective of the presentation 2) force a thought in your head 3) use clues; certain actions like squeezing your palm or pinching your thighs can help stop the brain from thinking about how nervous you are.
- When you forget your lines, you can turn to the screen for cues. To do so, remember to move the whole body rather than standing firm on the ground and just turning the upper body to look at the screen. By moving about this allow yourself to relax and remember better as well.
