RE-wind/cap: Oral Presentation

How would I honestly sum up my oral presentation experience?

 I remember rehearsing my script in the showers, during the much-need breaks from crazy FYP and reading myself to sleep for that few days prior to the presentation day. Even when I was merely practicing those lines, there was this nagging apprehension that used to make me fumble and stumble over some lines and I would silently grimace thinking 'what if' that actually happened during the actual presentation. And it kind of made me realize that it had been a while since I ever felt so nervous about presenting. I have always been comfortable presenting or even speaking up about my opinions so it had relatively always been a breeze. The thing was, I had always been presenting the way I've for a pretty long time without much of any constructive feedback from previous classes. That probably made me slip into this comfort zone where I assumed my presentation skills were decent enough to get my points across.

However, this module literally made me sit up and take notice that there was still a long way to go to perfect those presentation skills. The effort put in by the classmates, those much-thought about feedback to weigh in on my presenting abilities and not forgetting the considerable component it held in the overall grading of the module, all these managed to zoom in on my glaring weak points that I hadn't really reflected on or bothered about before then. In a way, it was a good learning experience that enabled me to take stock of what I still had to brush up on; my speed of delivery, weird facial expressions whenever I stumbled and those repetitive hand motions. It was pretty intimidating to present against the better speakers who seem to have this natural flair for speaking to the audience. However, that made me appreciate the fact that one's presentation abilities had to be constantly and rigorously practiced if one were to get better, appear more fluent and at ease.

Learning to communicate ideas across to the audience, verbally and non-verbally; I tried to keep that in mind consistently as our group went through the actual presentation session. I found myself consistently making the effort to remain composed in the event of those occasional stumbles instead of giving in to the natural instinct to pull a face. Furthermore, the prior rehearsing of my script had fortunately enabled me to register the need to slow down my pace of delivery. After a couple of attempts, I feel that I am finally able to commit to slowing myself down when presenting.  

After the OP, there was still a couple of issues that I believe compromised my overall quality; the stumbles that affected the fluency of the delivery. But the most important take-away that I have gathered from this oral presentation experience was the realization that consistent practice and taking heed of the feedback given would gradually but surely pave the way for honing my presentation abilities better; and a bit more of confidence wouldn't hurt! With that, I’m going to take this experience as another lesson learnt to keep note of while prepping myself better for the next presentation that comes my way.