the end, the beginning

Finally, it comes to the end.

And I am glad at least I made the sentence above grammatically correct. From peer teaching to project proposal, I finally found myself a way to deliver messages more clearly: preparing a script as if you do not have one.  The thing I would not forget for all my fellow presentations is: when you are not familiar with the precise words used in the topic, draft the script before going for the presentation. Even though a presentation without a script makes one more professional and nature, lacking of script sometimes leads to the wrong choice of words on the site. That’s one of the shortcomings in my presentations, as reflected from the peer teaching session as well as the trail run for the proposal presentation. With the reminder from Ms Goh, I drafted a script before the real presentation, and as a result, even though my choice of word is still not excellent, the language improved a lot from the previous ones. There are other shortcomings reflected from the presentations, like the repeating of the word “actually”, and the poor pronunciations thus there is large room for improvement. On the other hand, I find that the good thing about me is that I am now more confident in the way I deliver a message with the tone as well as the gestures that used to involve the audiences. The pace of the speech is quite good now, as least people do not hear nervous from it.

As for the performance of the group, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Peh Kar Liang and Mr. Chung Wing Tai: without you, the learning outcomes for this module would not be so significant. You taught me how to manage the work more efficiently, how to make fast decisions and how to use everyone’s strength in a cooperative work. Overall, I think we have made a very good team. For the presentation, we managed to convince the audiences that our project will work. Even though the first presentation to Ms Goh was rather messy and meaningless, we handled the emergency case very well and the second draft of presentation turned out to be much better. During the presentation, we did involve the audiences throughout the 20 minutes presentation. Even though we may not have convinced the audiences at the senior offering help in the forum part, this could be backed up if we found examples from the Linux community. Nevertheless, we have done the job excellently given the time and manpower constrain.

And guys, last words for you two: start to use Endnote now and trust me, you will not regret it.

As for the Professional Communication, the module itself, I must admit that my expectations for the module are quite different from the learning outcomes for the module. My initial attention is to take a module that can improve my English proficiency, which turns out, that this is just a minor objective of the module. I never expected to learn how to perform in an interview, how to use a wiki platform etc, yet they are among the main objetives of the module. However, I am not very regreted. I observe myself through the learning journey, and find my strength for comuncation is the ability of paying attention to details and observing the speakers, and to combine the information I get with the big pictures. The ability to work in a team remains a strength. However, my proficiency in communication is still largely limited by the language. The grammar mistakes, wrong choices of words and the inadequat pronouncations are huge blocks on my way. And these will not be improved through one or two modules but need a long term practise. Just be patient, and pay more efforts.

With all these messages in mind, I believe I am prepared to move on to my next journey. A big thanks to Ms Goh and my dear classmates, and I wish you all a happy and sucessful life in the future.