The end can also means a start

When I begin to write this post, I feel some pain in my heart. This blog post marks the end of this module. However, I think it is also the beginning of our way to enhance our soft skills. I heard of one saying that really describes my feeling: “When in retrospect, what you really value and feel happy is not the happiest time you experience, but the time when you put a lot of effort in and the time sometimes even makes you feel pains that you will remember and appreciate about”.

This module is actually an extra module for me and I do not need its 4MC. Some people might ask, why you give yourself some extra work to do? I think I choose the module because I think it is the time I need to enhance my soft skills.  During my four years study in the Faulty of Engineering, I feel there is no module designed to enhance my soft skills. There is no attention paid to the language usage and presentation skill even though we do have projects.  As English is my second language, I feel it remains an obstacle for me in every aspects of my life. Thus I decide to take the module and enhance my communication skills.

Though this semester I have some improvement in the following aspects:

1). Written Skill

I have to admit that my writing skill was quite bad at the beginning and even if I have some improvement, it is still far from a satisfactory level and I have a long way to go. I think the blogs contribute much to this improvement. It seems it is the first time I write in English to express feelings and thoughts. All the reports I have written before are technical and I have not paid attention to the language at all. It is until the blog post that I realize I feel some difficulty in expressing myself in English. I tried to alter the words and sentences to find the best way and I checked my post for language mistakes before posting.

2). Spoken language

I also have to admit my spoken language is far from good. For the projects and discussion I have in my engineering modules, I tend to group myself with my Chinese friends thus the language is purely Chinese. I choose this module because I know there is no one I knew and I force myself to speak more in English with classmates. I feel I have improvement a lot through this semester through chats and presentation. Especially for the preparation of peer teaching and final presentation, I force myself not to memorize it but to think and speak on the way.

3). Presentation Skill

Through learning, practicing and feedback, I think my presentation skill have improved a lot. By watching the video of Ken Robinson and Steve Jobs, I have some ideas of a good presentation. By watching the video of myself, I found weak points that I can never realize. The three steps cycle repeats for peer teaching and final presentation and I think it is really an effective way to improvement.

4). Team Work

I think Brad does an excellent job in grouping us, by which I mean we have different team members for different projects and we also sit in different groups during class. I think it is a good way to force us to meet and communicate with different classmates. Though working with different persons, I have learnt how teamwork and team building is important and how to communicate, negotiate when some problems arise.

5). Resume, Application Letter and Interview Skills

 While this may seem not so important to some of our classmates, I really want to tell you from a ‘senior’ prospective that it is indeed useful when you are in my stage trying to find a job. I am busy with job application this semester and until now I realize how hard you need to try to get only one of interview opportunity and how hard you need to try if you want to stand out during this interview. The peer review of resume and application letters, peer teaching on interview skills and mock interview have gained me a lot.

Some final thoughts:

I really think this is an excellent module. Although there is a lot of work needs to do, I think they really worth it because I can feel the progress I have. What is more, I think this module really improves my awareness of soft skills and that is why I say it is also a start. The module ends however the learning and improving never stops. I will always pay attention to my communication skills.

Last but not least, besides all the skills I have learnt, the people are also what I value the most. We work together, eat together and play together. We share our thoughts and feelings. I think it is an asset of my life!

OP Reflection

Hi all. Firstly, thank all our classmates for giving us some support and patience during our presentation and ask some challenging questions during the Q&A session. I would also like to thank my team members, Xiaoshi, Sylvester and Wyhow. It is a great experience to work with you guys.

I have watched through the video several times and tried to find the strengths and weakness of the presentation. I really think the video method is a good way for self-reflection because it allows me to see myself in the audience’s eyes. I have found many problems which I have not thought about before. Below is my reflection of my presentation.

Preparation

During our initial brain storming of the ways we could use in our presentation to make it more interesting, Xiaoshi come up with the idea of news broadcast to cover the problem finding and survey analysis parts. As these two topics are relatively boring,we think a news broadcast is a good way to grab the audience’s attention.

We originally planned to use Powerpoint for our presentation and I had come up with my old way of slides with many cute pictures. Thanks for Wyhow for introducing us the software Prezi, which has a brilliant interface. However, after I went through the presentation skills and slides guide Brad mentioned to us, I thought I had better changed the way of my presentation from “funny and cute” to “Professional”. Then I changed most of the pictures from clip art pictures to the more professional ones. At the same time, we decided to cut down the words on the slides to let the audience to pay more attention to our presentation itself.

I think the weakness is that we did not have enough rehearsals and we did not have ‘a full rehearsal’. During our rehearsals, we did not fully play like the real one; we still refered to our notes or slides sometimes. Thus during the real presentation, when there was suddenly nothing to refer to, we tended to get nervous and forgot the words.

Delivery

After watching the video of my presentation, I think there are several strengths and weakness. The news broadcast idea is quite creative and sounds interesting, the video and the special “StepUpNewsAsia” logo look quite natural and real.  

One biggest weakness is the less of organization of the whole presentation. It appears a bit messy. We actually had discovered this point during our rehearsal, but we failed to find ways to improve it. I think this may due to the difficulty to find a natural transition to bring the news broadcast in.

I have also found some problems regarding to my own delivery. One is that I did not speak very fluently. As I wanted to practice my oral speaking skill, I did not write a script and memorize it. I did not want to turn the presentation to reciting. Although I practiced for several times, I still cannot made it very well during the presentation. I think I need to practice my English further. The other problem I found is that although I did not recite, it sometimes sounded like I was reciting. I did not speak with variations of tones and speeds to show some emphasis. I also found there was no pause between sentences which may make the audience tired and difficult to listen to.

Audiovisuals

We had two videos used in this presentation. I think the student interview one is quite good as all the students we interviewed looks quite natural. The way of the video is also the normal way of interviews in a news broadcast. The second interview with Wyhow, who plays as the professor is also done well. However, the problem is that it does not show professions because it is obviously a fake one by interviewing someone in the team. However, we still show our thanks to Wyhow because he acted quite well.

One of the biggest weakness or mistake we have made is the sound system. Although it was fine at last due to the help from the other group, it still leaves a bad first impression on our presentation. I think this is a lesson learned that we should pay attention to every detail.

The Prezi is quite a good software. However, as we choose to use the cell phone to control it, there are some problems. The cell phone went to standby mode after a short while when I was presenting. When I tried to click to change the slide, sometimes the first click only ‘wake’ the cell phone and I need to press a second time. This resulted to the unsmooth way during my presentation.

In conclusion, I think this presentation is good lesson. Although it had some problems, we still did not regret to try the new way of news broadcasting. I think we need to challenge ourselves to try something new and progress with making mistakes and reflection.