Oral Communication Reflection

There is no question that after giving about four speeches, I have become a much better overall public speaker. In the beginning of the semester, I would tend to get nervous during some of my speeches and consequently the delivery of my speech would be greatly affected. If I had made a mistake, my level of nervousness would drastically increase and I wouldn’t know how to correct it. Although today I have improved on these aspects. Normally in order to control my nerves I try to think as positively as possible. This is critical because when I start to think even a little bit negatively then I severely hurt my chances of giving a good speech. Instead today, my main priority is to stay very confident and tell myself that I’m going to perform fine.

This was something I was concerned about because when rehearsing for my speech I was worried the points were unbalanced but during the speech I did not feel like I spoke more about one topic than the other. I think it helped that I recognized this during rehearsing, so I was conscious of it during my presentation. Another thing I think I did well was my vocalized pauses. My um's & and's. Although I am aware that I still used vocalized pauses, I think it was a lot less frequent than in my first speech. I could definitely improve on a few things for my next speech. I feel that for my next speech I could improve on being relaxed and calming myself down. I need to remind myself I know what I am talking about and not get so tense and shaky during the presentation. Also I need to work on my eye contact. I looked at the crowd, but they were glances. And short ones. I need to extend my eye contact length and width. I need to focus and not reading from my cards and holding the eye contact for longer than a

I am fairly nervous for my speech today because I didn’t get to prepare as well as I would have liked. I got called into work last night and had to work with a new person and they had no clue how to do anything, so not only did I have to train them, but I didn’t get to practice my speech as much as I would have liked. I almost guarantee I’m going to talk too fast and not make the time limit. I’m also a little apprehensive just because of the type of speech this is, and I have never actually done a toast before. I have spoken in front of many people before at a ceremony in my high school, because I was a board member in National Honor Society. I had to speak on behalf of my fellow members and honor the new inductees. I am really hoping, and

During my introduction speech, I was nervous, but it wasn’t terrible. The nerves I had affected my volume and caused a dependency on my notes, but I didn’t allow the nerves to get the best of me. As for gaining confidence, writing about myself really allowed me to be confident in my speech because even if I forgot what I wanted to say, the content was about me

My preparation for my speech was simple. First, I used the method of cognitive restructuring, which “transforms negative self-talk into positive self-talk (Schwartzman, 2014, pg. 37). I used positive self-talk and a positive self-concept of myself to help boost my confidence for giving my speech. I also used systematic desensitization to reduce communication apprehension, which describes the feeling of anxiety about oral communication with others, according to Schwartzman (2014), to harness my nervousness and anxiety about presenting the speech in front of an audience (pg. 35). In addition to this, I rehearsed my introductory speech several times to make sure I was ready to present in front of my class and used the concept of visualization

Today I gave my informative speech and I think it went pretty well. To prepare for my speech I did numerous things. The first thing I did was I started researching the history of Alton. After I had researched I decided on what I wanted my points to be over bases off what I found out. After that I began to write my speech. I changed things and re wrote things a few times because my first version didn't make a ton sense. When I was up in front of the audience I felt nervous. I wasn’t as prepared as I wanted to be. I wasn’t expecting to go today. There were six people in front of me and when four of them were gone or not ready to go I panicked a little bit. When I was done giving the speech I was glad it was done, but I wish I had done better.

When I gave my speech, I felt confident. I don't exactly have a fear of public speaking- anyone who knows me could tell you that. I looked out to the entire audience for the entire speech because I didn't use note cards. I also kept my energy up throughout the speech which helped keep the audience focused on the speech. I made some jokes, and the audience laughed at most of them, which was a good feeling. But because I failed to fully memorize the speech, there were times that I was left trying to figure out the exact phrasing, which took away from the performance slightly, even though I don't believe it was that big of a deal. I also made a pun by ending my speech with "My speech is all ogre now" and very few people caught it. This was probably due to my poor

In this speech, i spoke about a topic that i was apathetic towards though, surprisingly i still came across very extemporaneous and passionate. This is because my strong suits are my speaking tone and/or style and my non-verbal communication skills. I excelled in eye contact and being comfortable in front of the audience. I would like to say this may be a false sense of accomplishment though, since I've been with this class an entire semester, I've naturally grown comfortable around them. This would allow anyone, including myself, to be more confident and at home while speaking.

Comparing my first speech to this one, I can see several differences. I can tell by watching and listening that I was very nervous. My first speech was much easier, because it was over a topic that I know endless amounts of information about. I fumbled over my words, and that throws off rhythm, and makes me use several verbal pauses. The first speech, I hardly used my note cards. I did have them filled out but after starting the speech, I just went by the picture order and talked accordingly. My second speech, I could see many of the same mistakes. Being nervous is the main culprit, but practicing more, would have made the presentation smoother. I practiced multiple times, on a few different

Public speaking can be very stressful, regardless of the many techniques out there to assist in calming your nerves. I think that every “first time” is a failure to me. If I’m starting a new class, leading a certain briefing, or addressing new people, I will always walk away with the feeling I could have done better. However, with that way of thinking I feel like it has pushed me to do better and I still use this to continue to show improvement. The first briefing I did as a young soldier to my superior command was almost too overwhelming. I found that after a few minutes it immediately got easier. I now use this experience to assist myself in current situations. I can become very nervous due to the fact that I’m competitive in everything

This really helped me to find my confidence and taught me how to get rid of the nerves that comes with public speaking. There is always room to improve and through the speech classes I took throughout high school I feel like I improved in my speaking skills. One of my strengths is being good at preparation. Preparation is a very important factor in making a good speech. Knowing your audience, your topic, and knowing how to organize a speech properly is something I find to be a strength. Another strength of mine that I previously stated is knowing how to get through any nerves that I have. My weaknesses of public speaking include my newly developed stutter, talking too fast, and not speaking super clearly. With speeches I am much better at putting the speech together rather than actually giving

The informative speech that I presented on Friday, which was about how to make gingerbread cookies went better that I though. I succeed in some aspects of the speech in others not. I still have couple points that I need to improve for my next speech and I hope I do much better than I did. The aspects I effectively accomplished in my speech were; good organization, good preparation, appropriate tone of voice and good eye contacts. The weakness points that I need to improve or perfect are the anxiety that I had, the topic of my speech and my body language.

Since I had the opportunity to record my speech, I was able to point out the strengths and opportunities for improvement more easily. One of my strengths is that I managed to speak at a normal pace. I tend to speak faster than usual when I am nervous because I want to finish in the shortest amount of time possible. In this speech, I was able to maintain a normal talking speed which helped to make my speech more listenable. I also used stimulus through my hand motions. It was not overbearing which can often happen but it was enough to make the delivery of my speech a better one. An opportunity for improvement that turned into a strength was the pause in my speech, I forgot what I was originally going to say but, I managed to

It was the first day of Honors English 12. The class was enormous in size and I had only associated with a few individuals from the class before. I never saw myself being able to speak in a large unfamiliar crowd. I started off extremely shy and became nervous, as Duval announced all the presentations we would accomplish over the semester. My expectations were not too high because I was a bad speaker, but I still had faith in myself. The various presentations we have done, allowed me to practice on my speaking skill. Personally, my ability to open up and speak in front of the audience has grown.

Another interesting experience that helped me gain confidence was my speech communications class with my professor, Mrs. Larson. I knew I didn't have any trouble with talking to a group of people. I love to tell jokes and stories to many people at one time, but I was nervous and somewhat embarrassed about preparing some boring speech and making everyone else suffer by listening to it. Mrs. Larson explained that we all have problems with this and that it can be overcome. I remember something simple she said that stuck in my mind: "The only way to get over the fear of something is to just do it." She was right. As I had to go up to give the speech, her words constantly kept running through my mind. After the speech, I realized that we were all in the same boat suffering from the same seasickness- nervousness, We all had to give speeches. No one was out to criticize anyone else and we all ended up supporting each other! I learned that I could make a "boring" speech interesting if I have fun with it and feel comfortable as the speaker of the moment.