Final Reflection on Learning

During my time at NUS, I had a chance to meet new people and a new culture. I do not think I would have reflected so much on me and my life if it were not for the course of ES2007S.

This module made me realize that I am good at English and that people actually can understand what I am saying, so I do not have to think as much when I speak and I feel more relaxed.

I look at my self in a new way these days and I am trying to be spontaneous. I think about the signals that I send out and how I want to be perceived. I want people to see me as the happy and fun girl that I am. I also want to bring out the best in people and help them to find themselves. Therefore, I thought about becoming a coach (life-coach).

It is interesting how you can see if a person is closed or open just by the first impression. I could never imagine that the non-verbal could mean so much. This will be really helpful when I meet new people and it will help me to listen to people in a new way. It is not just about what they say, so I need to focus more on what is going on besides the words.

I feel like I have improved a lot, but the journey has just begun. I feel good about my future and I think this module has inspired me to be more open to other people and to listen, listen to everything.

I found this interesting video/commercial from DOVE, which is more connected to what you think about yourself, but I think is interesting. It is quite long, but defiantly worth watching. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOq71eKI5Mg

I am going to miss everybody so much!!
Take care,

Love Helene

Reflection on Oral Presentation

Last week, we presented our proposal to CDTL (centre for development of teaching and learning) about the teaching qualities at NUS. I was well prepared and knew my content well. I felt confident before class, but as soon as we entered the classroom, I started to feel nervous.

My part was the introduction and the background, which means I was the first one to speak. With only half of the class present, it was easy to connect with everybody. In the beginning I tried to pull in my audience using an “attention getter”. I explained that all of the team members were from different faculties and said

-                      -So as you probably noticed we do not have so much in common, [ ;) haha ] no we do, but we are all spread out on different faculties and we all have experienced both good and bad teachers during our time at here.

This “attention getter" can be seen as quite weak, but with the amount of people in the audience I think it was good enough. I also feel that it connected to the point I wanted to make.

I think that I need to bring more to my visuals, but right now I am not comfortable enough multitasking while speaking English. Therefore, I created my slides in the way that it would work for me during my presentation. Looking back, I feel that it was a good idea. Hence, the rest of the presentation was going well. I felt that I was stumbling on the words sometimes, but I feel that my ability to present in English has improved a lot during this module. So, even if it was not perfect, I am proud of how far I have come.

BR Helene