The ECAC-ELC workshop entitled “Developing Confidence in Presentation Workshop”, by Ms. Miranda Gao, ELC Visiting Instructor, was a big success.

In the beginning, the instructor commented that everyone has stage phobia and it is very common in our life especially on campus. Due to this, most students need to prepare for presentations, and having a good attitude is necessary for a presentation. The instructor then gave each participant a piece of paper and asked them to list the top 5 things they were afraid of in a presentation. Not surprising, most of our problems are similar, such as fear of forgetting the script, afraid of leaving our audience a bad impression about our English proficiency, and so on. Ms. Gao then taught us different ways to think about things we are afraid of. For example, nobody knows what we want to say so we should not be scared of it. Then she showed us 8 pictures and asked us to make a brief statement and let others guess which picture we wanted to express. This method helped us to open our heart and try to spontaneously speak in public. Afterwards, the participants watched some short videos about how to calm down before giving a presentation and how a positive posture can give us energy. The workshop ended with a Q&A session where other teachers also gave participants some advice.

This workshop was held in the mid-term and it was just the right time for students to deal with our study problems.

Written by Yamashita Takuhon, ECAC Student Ambassador