Tabarak Abdulhussein Presentation appraisal Before beginning my presentation, I have felt extremely nervous. I even thought that I have forgotten everything I know. But, I stopped and said to myself “I know this”. I am passionate about this topic enough that the words will find a way to come out During the very first minutes of the presentation, I felt even more nervous. My hands were shacking However, I tried my best not to show it. I have tried to project my voice and have a body language that would cover my nervousness. After 2 minute 28 seconds, my voice faded and I even said “excuse me”. However, I have asked my classmates afterwards and they didn’t notice that it my voice faded because I was too nervous During the last 2 minutes of the presentation, I felt very calm and relaxed. I felt very comfortable that I didn’t follow my script, Ijust said what came into my mind. At the end of the presentation, I felt proud and relived. ‘My opening statement was “Good moming everyone, today my presentation is going to bbe about “How does the political circumstances of a country affect the cultural identity of its citizens 7” If I were to do the presentation again, 1 wouldn’t consider changing it ‘because I think it is good enough. For the stating the objective, I said “As you can see, I have highlighted different aspects of the title, political, cultural and identity, and the reason is because I am going to analyze these different aspects and relate them to each other, and that it is the objective of my presentation.” To make my presentation more interactive, I can ask the audience why they think that that there are some words in the title in a different color. However, I believe it is good enough, In terms of the planning of my presentation, Ihave sat down and analyzed the title. What are the major aspects highlighted in the title? These are politics, culture, identity and citizens, And then I started linking them while I have structure my presentation in a way to link these aspects and constantly remind my andience what the title is. I wanted the audience to connect, and I believe I have accomplished that by the links and by including a slide in the presentation that basically says “well, what does this mean’, in other words, why did I talk about all of this. In all of my presentation, I made one major argument that I wanted my audience to carry out with them. The argument is that there are some disadvantages associated with being @ third culture kid. It is true that the majority tend to be open-minded, diverse and more aware of other cultures. However, there is a down side. They don’t have a root. They lack stability and perhaps security depending on the country they are living in. I have tried to plant the seeds of this argument all throughout my presentation by looking at culture, identity, cultural identity and then reflecting on my personal experiences. And then I have ‘watered these seeds on the “Meaning” slide where I have explicitly stated the argument. If I were to do the presentation again, I wouldn’t change the way I have structured my argument because I believe itis well structuredDue to technical issues, I didn’t use a clicker. So we had to employ a human clicker where I had to constantly bend my neck to signal him that I need to move to the next slide. However, even with the clicker, I believe I have relied in the power point more Besides making sure that I have a clicker next time, I will make cards that contain key words associated with each slide. I was using the power point as a visual aid to remind myself of what I need to say. Therefore, the cards will be my visual aid next time. They should not contain long sentences, only a couple of key words to drive me to remember ‘what my point is Initially, I was planning to sit on the front table at the left hand side of the class However, the lack of the clicker made me sit on the right side and therefore I did not make eye contact with everyone. The reason is because there were people who were setting next to me and so I totally forgot about them because I couldn't see them Hopefully, next time the clicker is available. However, if I am in the same situation again, then I will try to move around the classroom more to make it more interactive. One of the students said “ you were speaking to us not at us”. However, I think I can change the “to” into wath. Meaning that next time I will try to make it a conversation by asking them questions along the presentation Thus creating a friendly, informal and intimate atmosphere. One of my vocal goals is to speak slower. When watching the videotape, [have noticed that I spoke at a high speed occasionally which made my language unclear. I think that the only way to solve this problem is to practice speaking slower more In analyzing the comments of my classmate from the color sheets, I am proud thet they understood why I have chosen to sit down “being part of the audience”, “comfortable, felt like a talk”, “the way she made the presentation sitting down made it like a one-to-one conversation”. They said that my voice project was “great” and the pace is “good” 1 am very disappointed that one of them wrote “I don’t know” under the major points made by the presenter. In order to solve this problem, next time I will try to embed my major points indirectly whenever I have the chance