Presentation Feedback (Oct. 8th)

This class was a nerve-racking one for me because I was going to be informed of my grades on the presentation. I was genuinely excited to hear how I could enhance my slides, speech delivery, and content. Being one of the first presenters in class and directly being told a few areas of improvement right after my presentation has made me realize copious areas of improvement thus far. Notwithstanding the cognizance I was able to attain thus far watching my peers, I was out of ideas and inspiration, so seeing what Mr.Paterson had to say was exciting. However, there was definitely a huge part of me afraid to hear how I was assessed. 

From the moment, the previous student finished, I was quite nervous. Apparently, that was obvious to Mr.Paterson and he immediately pointed it out. I sat down next to the teacher with my hands and feet crossed, back arched, and my lack of self-confidence was noticeable. Having an arched back is one of my bad habits, but definitely not something I had in mind when taking a seat. I was astonished that Mr.Paterson was even paying attention to all these small things, and made me realize I can not loosen up just because my presentation was over. Body gesture indefinitely conveys a lot about that person, and no matter what situation or circumstance I am in, it is something I have to constantly be aware of and be thinking about. In addition, I was surprised by the lucid and perspicuous reasoning he had when pointing out about my sitting posture. He mentioned that as a student, it is better to exude confidence when being graded to show that we are anticipating a good grade for what we delivered. At first, when he pointed out my nervous posture I honestly thought he was simply trying to in a sense, make fun of me. However, his psychological and cogent reason flabbergasted me.  He did say my seated posture was contrasting to my presentation and made me realize how my emotion or attitude emerges and is hard to conceal when it comes to body posture. To jump back to the beginning of last year, no student had anticipated being taught the psychological aspects of a public presentation.

Moving on to my academic book review, we went over the comments he had given us in the previous semester. I had thought I altered all the faults he had identified, but there was one sentence starter I hadn't modified (probably did fix it but uploaded the document to Turnitin before changing it). Every single time I reread my essay or re practice my presentation, there are areas I am not satisfied with, and constantly am aiming for higher. Mr.Paterson did say that gradually improving is a crucial step in learning, which was good to hear. Then, after receiving advice from the teacher, I went back to fix everything I could and more. In this process, a sudden thought had hit me. I realized how severely I had been relying on all these revolutionary apps we've been introduced to since last year. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing could be different for everyone. For me personally, my writing has immensely ameliorated after utilizing these writing tools. However, there is part of me that is relying on apps that will pick up my mistakes, and sometimes even automatically fix them without me noticing. Without a doubt, I believe that the number of times we use paper and pencil will de-escalate within the next few years, and this adaptation has already started in our society. Nonetheless, I do believe there will still be abundant times we use paper and pencil, at least within the next few years as a student. I am slightly afraid that if my precautions are too low, these apps will deteriorate my writing in some ways. For example, my spelling when typing has undoubtedly worsened after moving to Japan and living in a society where I am not constantly surrounded by English. And then on top of that, apps like Grammarly and autocorrect have lowered my consciousness for correct spelling, and I have mixed emotions about this. To say the least, as I start to utilize all these intriguing and 21st-century apps, I'd like to balance it out so they do not have any bad effects on my writing whatsoever, and merely continue enhancing. 

Comments from the teacher (note to self):

good credibility at the beginning

eye contact was pretty good

try avoiding casual language in, formal essays

there were some areas unfixed in my essay

gradually improve them every time I reread.

rephrasing