English literature& Language 

FOA reflection 

My Further Oral Activity analysed how the black race was exploited in advertisements. Although many people would say that racism no longer plays a role in society, I portrayed by disagreeing argument by showing two different advertisements, one from a much older time and one that was much more recent and analysed how racism still holds a role yet more discreetly then it did before. 

The criteria were based on 4 different criterions which were Knowledge and understanding, organisation, language and understanding how language is used. The problem with both my advertisements were the fact that they both lacked language. The first one only contained one line of writing because the picture itself was so powerful so therefore there wasn't too much on the language. The second ad as well as the first focused mainly on the image and seeing as it was a more modern ad it was harder to find one with open racist language because that's not something seen nowadays in society so the image discreetly tries to portray the racism. The organisation of the presentation was good, I talked in order of what I wanted to say with a bit of looking into my transcript but otherwise it was fairly well. 

My overall feeling to the presentation is alright, I feel like I could have done more and said more yet it was very time consuming to find images that fit my expectations to present to the class and I was also very nervous throughout the presentation which of course had an impact on my speech because I could have included much more which I had written on my transcript and elaborated on it much more than I had. So therefore I was quite successful yet I could have been more.

I choose this topic because I found it very interesting and I liked how I could talk about how this issue is still seen nowadays in advertisements and now only in the past. I was able to touch on the audience and purpose and intent meaning of both the ads and the tone and mood, style and the content of the ads, ethos and I had some pathos that I wasn't able to fully elaborate on during my presentation.

I've learned many new things about language and advertising and how society chooses to portray certain aspects through advertisements. In my particular topic, I have gained new knowledge that I didn't know beforehand. Yet not only through my topic but also through this Further Oral Activity how language is portrayed and the different techniques used and how to identify them when looking at a text and how this can change the meaning of a given advert. 

For future FOAs I will spend more time trying to memorise the speech to keep it following and not be as nervous to make it all formal and presentable and also find ones that suit the criteria more, so they'd include more text to be analysed but overall as this being my first time presenting a Further Oral Activity I am quite happy.