Baby's First Presentation!: A Reflection

This past week (or 2 weeks ago, I don't remember), I had to give a group 90 minute presentation on Language! There were many things about this presentation that I enjoyed and think went great, yet there were many things I wish we could have talked about or at least researched.

Initially, when I had gotten the topic, I wasn't too excited. I didn't know where or how to start. Usually, teachers give me a specific outline of what should be talked about, but we were literally just given a topic and were told to talk about "how we know with it." Once we got the project out and rolling, it wasn't as hard as I had thought it would be. 

I really enjoyed the short activity we had at the beginning where people were asked to try and say a sentence without words (essentially charades). I feel as though it was much better than the original activity plan we had, which was to try and communicate to someone using a different language. As much as that would have been fun, we didn't go into the aspect of different languages on our presentation, so I don't think it would have matched up.

Something else is that I did not to expect there to be much discussion in the class. From past experiences in my classes, anytime there is a discussion, it's always the same two or three people, plus the teacher talking. In this situation, a majority of the class had some input to add along. The discussions was never bland either. There wasn't a point where we were just repeating the same ideas over and over; we were always expanding. 

If I could have changed one thing on the project, it would be the fact that I feel as if we could've done research on why there are so many different languages. I didn't see a purpose in the final part of our presentation, which was the how emotions tie in with language. I feel like it was kind of a "throw in at the last minute" type of deal. It didn't really provide any information that wasn't self explanatory, in my opinion. I also feel like we could have talked more about language in relation to culture, which ties in on how we didn't talk about different languages and dialect. 

The presentation, in general, was not that bad. The group I was given was pretty good, and the way we arranged things was helpful as well. I was pretty nervous in the upcoming days up to the project, since we knew we would be the first group to present. I had never been given a project where I had to speak in front of a class for so long, and to be honest, it didn't feel as long as it was. The 90 minutes flew by! I didn't think I'd talk as much as I did.