"This year we saw a wider range of topics presented. Some may look familiar but were presented from a different or lesser-known perspective. And unknown topics like お嬢マン caught us by surprise too. The Gold Prize Winner team enchanted us with their 'engaging' presentation. Not only we felt that they were 'talking' to us but also the 'seamless' way they took turns to present made us feel that they were a team, instead of several unrelated 'news readers'!  I was also very pleased by the quality of the questions posed by all teams to each other. It showed that each team took a real effort to read up and pondered over the topics presented by their proponent teams.  My compliment to Team 4 for the extra effort in preparing an interactive slide to answer questions from the proponent teams. Applause to all teams!!

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    On the other hand, there seemed to be a lack of connectivity between the students and the topic they presented. Firstly, the words they used seemed not theirs as some struggled to pronounce them. Secondly, there was no personal relation between the topic and the students. Lastly, some team members were too focused on their parts that they did not see the forest for the trees.

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    Hence, here is some of my advice. Use やさしい日本語 (words that are easy to understand and pronounce). You will lose your audience's trust and attention if you cannot pronounce the word well. Secondly, let your inner voice be heard. Run a quick survey among the team members or classmates related to the topic to gauge trends or identify issues.  Lastly, tackle the whole topic together as a team, not just focus on your part and ignore the rest. This applies not only to the content but also to the technical support."

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