Lesson 10: Presentation

Today, it was our turn to present the classroom project. After two groups presented their project, our group name was called. I was not that nervous because I was rather excited to present and desperate to finish the assignment as fast as possible. Although the previous groups did an excellent well-structured presentation, it didn't put so much pressure on me so I think I was able to present in a relatively good condition. However, even in that good condition we had exposed many mistakes and lack of preparation in front of the audiences.
There are several things that we did well in the presentation. One thing that should be highly evaluated in our presentation is that it included a lot of dopamine-generators, which are jokes, gestures or words that make audiences laugh in order to attract their attention. Luckily, most of the audiences laughed a lot during the presentation. It might have been just ridicule or derision, but it's important that they were motivated to at least listen to our presentation. It was unexpectedly lucky that my little mistakes and misstatement somehow triggered a laugh. Considering the fact that so many of the audiences laughed during the presentation, I can be confident that our presentation somehow, even if not intentionally, became an entertainment.
Compared to the  number of things that we did well in the presentation, there are too many points to reflect. The main point is the lack of preparation. None of us perfectly prepared for the presentation and about a half of what we said during the presentation was ad-lib. I did not count how many times I mumbled and said 'uh' or 'ah', but I'm pretty sure that it was hard to fully understand what I said and that's virtually all because of lack of preparation. To improve, I believe it's necessary to rehearse and make points clear in advance.
Lastly, it was such a dissapointment that my presentation skill and English has dropped dramatically. Even though my English was never good, it was shocking to watch my own speaking in video and realize how awful it is and how much I lost in just one year of life in Japan. I think I need fundamental change in attitude towards English-speaking and opportunities to learn English within everyday life.