Final Reflection

The English course here, as I had expected, was quite different from those in my home university. The classes were fun and more interactive. The workload turned out to be higher, but the good thing is that I learnt more.

Firstly, in the peer lessons, I learnt a lot from my classmates, not only the knowledge, but also the ways how they organized a class. When I reviewed my peer lesson after attending theirs, I got to know where I needed to improve for my peer lesson. After that, we practiced writing a resume and an application letter. Although I had written resumes before, I did not know what was good or bad about my resume because nobody had given me feedback about that. The comments given by Brad turned out to be very useful. Also, the mock interviews allowed me to practice interview skills in a half-real interview situation, which helped me to accumulate some interview experience. Then, in the project, we practiced writing and presentation skills again. I think I did better this time, especially in the presentation. The presentation video also helped me to know more about my own presentation. Moreover, the blogging activity forced me to continuously practice my writing skills. Although I know that continuous practice is vital for improving writing skills, I will not have the motivation to practice if it is not an assignment. Finally, I love the oral interactions in class. They did not only make the classes lively and interesting but also helped me learn some foreign culture and allowed me to share Chinese culture with my classmates.

In conclusion, there are many take-away points for me from this course. The above are just those academic or career-related skills. Apart from that, we learnt from each other from the interaction in every class. For example, the two main points Brad emphasized again and again about intercultural communication are definitely what we will take away from this course.

Oral Presentation Video

Reflection on My Oral Presentation

Reviewing my own presentation and having others’ reflections on my presentation are good ways of learning. When I watched the video of my presentation today, I really found many interesting things that I had never realized before. My reviews on my presentation are as follows.

As regards my strength, I think the structure of my presentation was quite clear. Also, in this presentation, I tried not to refer to the slides when I did not need to point out something on it. The result was that I referred much less to the slides than before. That was my progress. In addition, I think I also had good eye contact.

With regard to weakness, when I watched the video, the first thing I realized was that my English pronunciation is so Chinese! Although I can hear myself when I am speaking, I had never realized my pronunciation is so Chinese before I watched the video. Also, I think my delivery was not fluent enough. What I feel is that the presentation does not sound comfortable. Moreover, my presentation was lacking in interaction with the audience. That means my presentation did not properly lead the audience to think about the points that I had presented. Consequently, the presentation was not so persuasive as an interactive one. Finally, my response to questions was bad. When asked an unexpected question by Nan, I was very nervous and did not answer it well.

These are my reviews on my own presentation. Everyone is welcomed to leave feedback on my presentation here as comments. Every piece of feedback will be appreciated and valued. Thank you.