We part ONLY to meet AGAIN

They say no one is where he is by chance or accident. This was foremost on my mind as I was reflecting back on how I landed up with this module. ES2007S sure wasn't my first choice for my 6th module that I was intent on taking up. I applied for 2 other modules in which I was painfully outbidded for in the earlier rounds of CORS. 5 it shall be, I reassured myself. Cue then, the mass mail informing us about Professional Communication. Like a moth to a flame, I was instantly attracted to the module description and frantically emailed Brad and Ms Regina, facilitator of CELC about the possiblility of signing up for it. I got a positive approval on the Friday of Week 1. An uncharacteristic leap of faith at the eleventh hour it may have been, but here I stand at the finish line with only 1 regret. I could have got the module for 1 point had I just browsed through my mails earlier :P

In my first post, I highlighted my desire to be an effective communicator with friends, family and in a professional setting as the key reasons for taking up this module. After 13 weeks, I stand by this main idea and can safely say that I've come a long way. The communicator in me is definitely far from the finished article and leaves much to be desired, but the most crucial experience is the exposure to the learning curve. And it has been steep at times. Prime example being that of writing resumes, application letters and handling job interviews.

I have scourged for plenty of tips and tricks to ace the above mentioned from a wide variety of sources be it a guidebook, online material and even friends' sample letters and resumes. All of them though paled in comparison to what ES2007S had to offer. I take immense satisfaction from being more knowledgeable about the do's and dont's regarding these topics. Whether it was the peer teaching session or Brad's straightforward, detailed and at times brutal treatment of the content, there were plenty of takeaway points. All of which hold me in good stead for a successful application for an internship programme during the next 3 month vacation period.

A nagging inner compulsion also means that I have to render a glowing tribute to the sometimes underplayed life skills that we have picked up over the course of this module. The lesson on emotional intelligence was especially useful. Know yourself, choose yourself, give yourself is something I'll take with me for the rest of my life. Developing interpersonal and intercultural communication skills through the various life activities were also memorable. More so considering that our class had a wide range of students from different cultural backgrounds with whom we had to interact with frequently.


Oral and verbal communication was heavily emphasised throughout the 13 weeks and we had plenty of opportunities to put to practise the skills learnt. This for me was one of the key attractions of the entire module considering my immense admiration for great speakers combined with an overly ambitious ideal to emulate them. Tasked with 3 kinds of presentations( impromptu, peer teaching and oral presentation for proposal), this was my time to shine. Naturally I evolved as a better presenter with each passing experience, which basically could be attributed to the rise in confidence as we progressed. With each presentation, I seemed to gather more composure and satisfaction from being thrust into the spotlight, rather than being overawed by the expectations of the audience. Say whay you mean and mean what you say was something I adhered closely to in my presentations.


I would finally wish to take this opportunity to express gratitude to all who have been involved in this journey and have in 1 way or another made a difference to this course being all the more enjoyable. Yanling, Xiaoshi and Guo Chen during peer teaching, Alicia, Alvin and Xixi during the proposal for being wonderful teammates; Yanling again for being a wonderful blog buddy, and all other classmates who gave me useful input on my blog posts. Brad too for being a lecturer who taught and inspired many amongst us and did it so with a touch of humour. Everyone's contributions to the everlasting memories of ES2007S are much appreciated and will be cherished fondly in many years to come. 

In the spirit of communicating, I'd just like to leave one and all with a final question to ponder about.
Why does it only take a minute to say hello but forever to say goodbye?

Till we meet again....

Appreciation for Alibaba

Without sounding overly melodramatic, I’d just like to dedicate this post to my fellow team members of Alibaba; Alicia, Alvin and Xixi. The entire series of events leading up to our proposal and presentation has just been a whirlwind experience. Albeit one that I’ll have many fond memories of in years to come. The interview with Ms Tio, the many weekends and recess week burnt away, Alvin’s ingrown nail and eccentric actions, Alicia’s obsession with Macs and Xixi’s birthday rehearsal – the list goes on. This has been definitely one of the better project experiences I’ve had in my university life to date.     

I’m extremely thankful to having you people as my group members. We were serious and focused on producing a quality proposal. At the same time we took it down a notch with a jovial and light hearted approach whenever possible. The hard work seems to have paid off and in any case what ultimately matters is that we gave it our all. All the best with your exam preparations!! Cheers 

Looking back, I wish...

Preparation

Preparation wise, I felt the team focused far more on the written proposal than the presentation itself which really did not justify the greater mark allocation to the latter component. Before we knew it, the countdown had begun to D-Day which was in a week. That was as far as negatives went. Having realised we had to shift through the gears and fast, we got down to serious work.

Mental preparation was key. Personally, I was motivated firstly by the Ken Robinson video that was showed during class on October 25th. Watching and subsequently analysing his presentation certainly got me pumped up and inspired. The night before our presentation was also decisive when Alicia messaged us saying that we had done well for the proposal. That certainly eased the pressure and did wonders for my confidence level. It seemed straight forward enough. We had the content. All we had to do was to back it up with our delivery.

In between, the rehearsals helped a great deal as we were able to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each other’s presentation and correct them. For my part, I was advised by my team members to shorten my speech and also to refrain from descriptive language. They wanted me to adopt a simpler and ‘matter of fact’ approach to presenting my part, which would have a greater effect on the audience within such a limited time. It was undoubtedly positive advice and I adjusted my speech accordingly.

Delivery

For this oral presentation, I was solely focused on improving my peer teaching experience. Basis for comparison may have been limited in that peer teaching was much more informal, had a larger scope for humour, a longer time limit and was also aimed at just imparting information related to a subject matter. The proposal in short had to be professional at the same time persuasive enough, a challenge in itself.

From peer teaching, some potential areas for improvement included a tendency to look at the slides too often, being too serious and speaking too fast at times. I took these suggestions on board and made a conscious attempt to correct them. Reviewing the video, I realise that I did not refer back to the slides much which in turn enabled me to connect better with the audience by maintaining more meaningful eye contact (I hope!). I still did speak too fast on occasions, which was due to an intention to finish what I had planned to say. This remains a sore thumb and I guess the only way out is to cut down on content. Expressions wise, though I tried to project a more cheerful image especially when narrating the story of Warren Buffet, I felt that I was a tad too grim looking. (need a little feedback here :))

Audio-Visuals

We went along the idea of Prezi as opposed to the conventional approach of powerpoint slides which were too predictable and not interactive. With Prezi, we could basically add a 3 dimensional mode to our presentations with transitions and also there was more room for capturing the attention of the audience since it was more customised. Its analogous to PC (Powerpoint) vs Mac(Prezi) jk!

2 videos were incorporated into our presentation to better highlight the situation. This definitely worked a treat; in particular Alicia’s masterpiece on several newspaper headlines and our survey results. It was more impactful than us plainly saying that there was a problem which called for rectifying.

We also left no stone unturned with regards to the audio aspect. I was deeply disappointed that the audio system present in class did not work to our favour during my peer teaching session when I tried to replay the interview videos. Determined not to encounter a repeat situation, Alvin came up with a brilliant idea to bring our own speakers to the class. The speakers functioned as expected without any glitches so the team was naturally pleased with that.

However one drawback was the poor video quality of the projector which led to our slides repeatedly changing yellow in colour. This was a distraction even to me whilst I wasn’t presenting. Fortunately though, none of our speakers were put off by that and carried on with their speeches as per normal.

In all, the oral presentation was just another learning curve of ES2007S, from which I’ll take many positives out and continually try to eradicate the flaws.

After all...

"There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave."
-- Dale Carnegie