Presentation #3

"Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS"






a) The process of preparation and rehearsal

Group: I think the group did fairly well regarding the process of preparation and rehersal. We met a few times to organize our presentation and make sure it was ready to go. For example, we made the slides and suggested each other to see if it was effective or how it can be improved. Also, we made sure we all knew what parts to say in the presentation to keep the flow going smoothly;which is what we did in our rehersal. We went through our presentation about three times beforehand but I thought it was not enough to have confidence in myself.

Myself: Overall I thought I did well compared to the 1st and 2nd Presentation. This is maybe because I prepared faster than the other presentation; Although I started few days before... I was thinking about the topic but I could not think of anything interesting to say. I made my script right before the final, so I could not memorize all the contents I wrote; so I decided to forget about the script and speak in my own words as the presentation goes. As a result, I did not read the script much and was able to deliver the message more than if I were to read the script. Since I did not have much rehersal time on my own, the rehersal we did as a group was very important for me. So I was glad we were able to do a few rehersals before the final. (but as I said in the part above, the preparation and rehersal time was inadequate for me; although I was lot better than doing nothing)


b) The effectiveness of the introduction

Group and myself: Since I was the one doing the Introduction, I would like to reflect on my performance. After I watched the video, I thought I was able to successfully catch the audience's attention with the pause and low toned voice. In the feedback after the presentation, Sho and Matt also mentioned that I did well in my introduction. But my team mates and also my feedback partner mentioned that my introduction was maybe too long and I spoke too slow; so those are some points to keep an eye on in future presentation.


c) The persuasiveness and organization of the content in the body

Group: Although I did not say anything in the body, I would like to evaluate the presentation as a whole and also my team mates, Lisa and Kaya individually. After looking at the video, I realized that we were not emphasizing the main points as much compared to our rehersal we did beforehand. Maybe it is because we did not have much rehersal time or we were just nervous to speak in front of the audience. However, compared to the other groups, our visuals were very very effective to persuade and address the audience the servereness of our topic. (Probably we had twice as much slides as the others?) To add, I thought Kaya and Lisa did very well in delivering the important contents in our presentation. Kaya explained the purpose of our campaign and why we need the money and Lisa stated how reliable we are effectively. If I were to add, I would say both of them spoke a little bit too fast; but I would say that would be my fault since my introduction went over the time alloted.


d) The conclusion and Q&A

Group and Myself: I think Lisa, who did the conclusion, did perfect (maybe speak slower as a said above) in tieing up the presentation. The part where she mentioned that since 21 minutes had passed, at least 21 children died because of AIDS deeply impressed me; and hopefully the audience. Before our rehersal, the conclusion was a little complicated but after giving ideas to wach other, we were able to make a simple, however effective conclusion. The Q and A was a little short in my opinion. We were planning to have about 7 minutes of Q and A but only had 4 minutes. So we should have ended the presentation a bit faster. Moreover, we forgot to repeat what the question was (eg. so your question is....) and ask the questioner if we answered his/her question clearly. Other than that, Kaya did great in going straight to the Q and A after Lisa's conclusion.


e) Use of visuals

Group: The group did very well regarding the visuals. As you can see, we used more visuals that the other two groups; I thought this was NOT a bad idea. Before, I thought having too much slides would make the presentation hard to organize; however, it turned out to be very effective. Most of the slides were decorated by Lisa (she loves making slides and searching for images) and she added images to reinforce the messages we wanted to deliver on each slide.

Myself: I mainly focused on the contexts rather than the visuals. This is because I thought without good contents, visuals would be worthless. However, I did take time to organize my visuals so it would easy for the audience to look at the visuals as a "support." (In other words, I made them simple to make sure the audience pays attention to my contents and listen to my words intead of looking at the slides the whole time) Therefore, in contrast to Lisa, I made my slides simple as possible. In my former ELP class, my teacher told the class that simple slides are better than ones with many decorations (such as words and images). Since I thought the same way, I decided to make the slides simple with few words and images to give impact.


f) Body language: Eye contact, facial expression, gestures, and postures)

Group: Overall, I thought the group was reading the script more than the other groups. Eye contact is essential in presentations like these because you have to have confidene in yourself to persuade the audience. In my opinion, eye contact is one of the key methods of showing that you have confidence in yourself. Therefore, we could not use the eye contact effectively. As for the facial expression, since our topic was rather serious, it was very hard to use facial expression. However, each of the member did not smile and kept a "serious face" to match the contents throughout the presentation. Since the some of the members kept their scripts in their hands, they were not able to use both of their hands to use gestures to deliver the message. And it seemed that they were just reading the script. Finally, as for the posture, everyone was fabulous at standing still without moving much; which can cause distraction.

Myself: For this presentation, I wanted to make sure I did not just "read " the script. By not reading the script, my words would be more persuasive because 1) I can make eye contact to the audience to address my message and to show them I have confidence in myself, and 2) I would speak in my own words and thoughts and even think of new, better ideas that are not on the script while I am presenting. After watching the video, I thought I was successful in achieveing my goal in the Introduction part. For the body, or the Introduction of AIDS, I thought I read the script a little. But as a whole, I wanted to really emphasize and get the audience's attention in the Introduction so I was statisfied with that. I tried to keep a "serious face" as I said earlier throghout the presentation to show the audience how serious our topic was. It seemed I did not use much hand gesture as I had been in the previous presentations. But maybe this was because since I was addressing a serious topic, no hands were needed to emphasize the points ( I think) . I gradually started using hands as I went into the topic of AIDS and a more general content. However, I need to use more hand gestures to emphasize my points. So I will make sure I will do that in thw future. And as I said above, I think I did not move as much as I had been, so I was satisfied.


g) Use of voice

Group and Myself: I think every group member spoke in a good tone of voice. Also, everyone spoke in a clear loud voice so I thought their was not any difficulty for the audience to listen to our presentation.


h) Other points (as you like)

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT