The performance task was an enriching experience for all of us.
Our topic was on TCM and WM, and when I told some of my other schoolmates that, they would raise an eyebrow at me and bluntly say,
"Boring."
I beg to differ.
It was a very fun and rewarding experience, as we weren't confined to our chairs for the whole of the performance task and we could actually go out and interact with people. Not just sit in a chair and type some things that were on the Internet out.
We did face some obstacles, unfortunately. I remember some of us arguing (or rather, discussing in a slightly heated manner but not raising fists) about the topic. We actually settled for War Crimes at first, but then some disagreed, points were brought up and the topic was dropped. After that, we couldn't really decide on something since all of us had differing opinions. Some of us wanted to to do Environment, others Teen Culture. Finally though, after many rounds of discussion, we settled on Alternative Medicine.
Cue the hardcore and messy research on Google Docs.
We had some minor arguments but the first obstacle came when we went out to interview the unlicensed TCM Practitioner. When we were waiting for him to finish treating a patient so we could interview him, we found out he could speak only limited mandarin, so communication was not as smooth as we hoped it could have been. However, it did work out because we all tried to provide alternative phrasings and we used hand gestures and kept on smiling politely no matter what.
The biggest and most memorable problem occurred when we went to Raffles Place MRT to interview the general public. We were happily interviewing some random strangers when along came a security guard.
"HEY YOU CAN'T CONDUCT INTERVIEWS HERE! YOU NEED A PERMIT TO DO SO!"
Even though we were standing outside the mall, near the MRT. Maybe we were standing too close to the mall and they owned that little bit of land as well. In the end though, we were told multiple times to go to China Town because "no one owned that plot of land". It was very kind of him to give us advice, had he not said it a at least a million times, then proceeded to follow us when we said we were going to stop interviewing people and were planning to go eat lunch now.
All of us were a bit surprised at the unexpected outcome as we headed to lunch, Nicolette continuously checking STOMP to see if a headline along the lines of 'Cedar Girls' Students Conduct Interview Outside Raffles' Place Mall Without Permit! Disgrace to Singapore!' would suddenly appear.
We then resorted to asking relatives and friends about the survey, so all was well.
The last major obstacle we all faced was trying to be engaging yet keeping in the time limit for the presentations. For some of us, time limit was top priority, others creativity. Yan Jean and Nicolette were trying hard to reduce their word limit, and Jing Xuan had brought herbs to emphasise her points. Varshini and I had resorted to hand gestures and an irrelevant picture of mating frogs I had found while researching on TCM.
Everything went fine and we celebrated after presenting.
I learnt a whole lot during this Performance Task, about expecting the unexpected, about improvisation when something goes wrong, and about presentation skills. I am very happy to have been a part of this PT, a part of this group, and I thank my group members for their hard work.
I sincerely hope my juniors can experience this learning process and gain just as much as I have, if not, more.
-Shannon Pei of 2A
Our topic was on TCM and WM, and when I told some of my other schoolmates that, they would raise an eyebrow at me and bluntly say,
"Boring."
I beg to differ.
It was a very fun and rewarding experience, as we weren't confined to our chairs for the whole of the performance task and we could actually go out and interact with people. Not just sit in a chair and type some things that were on the Internet out.
We did face some obstacles, unfortunately. I remember some of us arguing (or rather, discussing in a slightly heated manner but not raising fists) about the topic. We actually settled for War Crimes at first, but then some disagreed, points were brought up and the topic was dropped. After that, we couldn't really decide on something since all of us had differing opinions. Some of us wanted to to do Environment, others Teen Culture. Finally though, after many rounds of discussion, we settled on Alternative Medicine.
Cue the hardcore and messy research on Google Docs.
We had some minor arguments but the first obstacle came when we went out to interview the unlicensed TCM Practitioner. When we were waiting for him to finish treating a patient so we could interview him, we found out he could speak only limited mandarin, so communication was not as smooth as we hoped it could have been. However, it did work out because we all tried to provide alternative phrasings and we used hand gestures and kept on smiling politely no matter what.
The biggest and most memorable problem occurred when we went to Raffles Place MRT to interview the general public. We were happily interviewing some random strangers when along came a security guard.
"HEY YOU CAN'T CONDUCT INTERVIEWS HERE! YOU NEED A PERMIT TO DO SO!"
Even though we were standing outside the mall, near the MRT. Maybe we were standing too close to the mall and they owned that little bit of land as well. In the end though, we were told multiple times to go to China Town because "no one owned that plot of land". It was very kind of him to give us advice, had he not said it a at least a million times, then proceeded to follow us when we said we were going to stop interviewing people and were planning to go eat lunch now.
All of us were a bit surprised at the unexpected outcome as we headed to lunch, Nicolette continuously checking STOMP to see if a headline along the lines of 'Cedar Girls' Students Conduct Interview Outside Raffles' Place Mall Without Permit! Disgrace to Singapore!' would suddenly appear.
We then resorted to asking relatives and friends about the survey, so all was well.
The last major obstacle we all faced was trying to be engaging yet keeping in the time limit for the presentations. For some of us, time limit was top priority, others creativity. Yan Jean and Nicolette were trying hard to reduce their word limit, and Jing Xuan had brought herbs to emphasise her points. Varshini and I had resorted to hand gestures and an irrelevant picture of mating frogs I had found while researching on TCM.
Everything went fine and we celebrated after presenting.
I learnt a whole lot during this Performance Task, about expecting the unexpected, about improvisation when something goes wrong, and about presentation skills. I am very happy to have been a part of this PT, a part of this group, and I thank my group members for their hard work.
I sincerely hope my juniors can experience this learning process and gain just as much as I have, if not, more.
-Shannon Pei of 2A
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