Personal Narrative: My Experience As A Navajo Language

Currently, if I were to rank my comfortability in speaking in front of the class, I would say it would be a 4 out of 10. I know many people would think it would be higher, but the fact of the matter is I have an anxiety when it comes to public speaking. Being an extroverted personality often leads people to believe I would have no problem speaking in public, but when the spotlight is on, it is an entirely different story. The moment I know I must get up in front of a group of people, I start to feel dread, my stomach goes into knots, my heart starts to race, and my palms get clammy. I always try to be the first speaker so that these feelings of dread can disappear sooner than later. Ironically, after I finish speaking (assuming it went well) I feel a sense of accomplishment. There is a remarkable sense of pride that comes with effectively communicating to your peers and being well received.

Looking back at my early childhood filled with many events and memories, I remember one in particular when my parents taught me my native language, Spanish, by reading books to me any chance they had. Beginning at the age of 8, I would bring home a variety of books from school eager to read them and learn new words. I spent a great amount of time reading that I eventually decided to move into short novels. This helped me improve so much that I never had trouble speaking Spanish. I vividly remember in my small class of 15 students, me speaking Spanish more fluently than any of my other classmates. Proud would be an understatement. This soon changed when I began second grade in the fall of 2006 with Ms. Magaña.

Public speaking is a fear faced by over 75% of the Earth’s population. In fact, 5.3 million of Americans today face social phobia and speech anxiety. Commonly referred to as “glossophobia”, speech anxiety is fear people face when delivering speeches and/or lectures to large audiences. The article, “Conquer Fear of Public Speaking through Emotional Intelligence”, written by Gleb Tsipursky, provides people with expert advice on how to conquer their speech anxiety. As someone who presents ideas and projects on a daily basis, I have started to conquer my speech anxiety. When I first moved to Hillsborough in 2013, I was petrified when delivering my student council speech. No one knew me, and I only had a scant amount of friends. I patently remember being extremely

So, for me to be up on stage in front of the whole school was very overwhelming. How I manage to get through with my parts I will never know. Having a very low voice, it made it very difficult for everyone to hear what I was saying. I have somewhat grown out of my shyest, I did manage to give a speech about our upcoming annual walk that takes place yearly. I have those moments where it is difficult for me to stand in front of a large group of people, though I am working on it. I know that it will help me build self-confidence, by speaking more in front of an audience to help gain that

was important to my parents that I knew my heritage language. Therefore, Spanish was the primary language spoken at home in my adolescent years. English was taught to me as secondary language at an older age. I am able to speak and write in both English and Spanish. But my challenge has been that I speak English with a slight Spanish accent. Throughout the years I been asked; in numerous occasions “Where are you from?”, “Are you from Mexico?”, “How long have you been in this country?” Even been spoken to in Spanish because they assume I can’t speak the language. It can be upsetting and discouraging at times until today. For many years I would practice what I needed when conversing with professors, coworkers, and even friends. I was afraid that

I have always been able to accomplish things to the best of my abilities. in the company of this approach, I am pleased to state I have always been successful with my academics. Nevertheless, do not assume I have constantly encountered academic subjects with ease. There are two topics I have struggled with. The two subjects-public speaking and Navajo language- have posed a few challenges for me.

I thought that I would never be able to become social, so I distanced myself from others and didn’t participate in many clubs. Finally, my mom grew concerned about my behavior and persuaded me to accept a job of assistant-teaching a Pre-Algebra class of about 20 kids. I was very reluctant at first, but seeing the hardworking students encouraged me to diligently do my own job as well. I began to try to socialize with my classmates and I started to volunteer more, joining a program at Kaiser Permanente and more clubs. Today, I am a lot more vocal than the past. Public speaking still makes me anxious and kind of nauseous but I’ve learned to continue working hard at overcoming this fear. I wanted to make a difference in people’s lives but I was too scared to speak to others. Now, I’ll continue making a difference in my own quiet

Public speaking is a subject most struggle with throughout their entire lives. Many think that after you learn how to public speak through presentations in middle school or high school you just get over how frightening it can be and learn to cope with the struggles of it. In many instances that is true. Depending on where, in schools students usually start public speaking while doing presentations every other week in a middle school class. Then gradually over the years you get more assignments slowly increasing the amount you public speak until you are comfortable to do it alone or for a certain period of time. For some students, like your’s truly, public speaking can be quite nerve racking. The fear of completely failing astronomically. One

Ok so I remember being that naive girl at the store looking watching a mom with her hair up in a messy bun (not the ones we try to make look messy) with an adorable toddler besides her face was as red as a cherry from screaming. I Kept thinking lady can’t you get her to stop crying, gosh why isn’t she listening to you. Boy did I not realize what being a mom is really like those moments are real, raw, and happen so common. Flash forward to having my son, I am so sorry! Thats a great lesson to me not to judge, we never know whats truly going on. Being a mom is the best thing in the world although its the toughest. Sure you don’t sleep and under your eyes you look like you went a couple rounds with Mike Tyson or you forget when’s the last time you

Throughout my life, I've always been afraid whenever I had to speak in front of a large group of people. Whether it'd be a participating in classroom or talking to a group of acquaintances, whenever the thought of speaking in front of that many people came in I immediately get anxious as if I'd embarrass myself by saying something wrong and getting laughed at sometimes. But all of that changed when I decided to overcome my anxiety by joining the debate society. Initially I embarrassed myself many times, sometimes by forgetting to say all the content I came up when anxiety stroke me at the moment my time to give a speech came, or by making embarrassing mistakes in my speech. But my willing to never give up and learning from my mistakes to make

I can feel the heat rise to my cheeks almost as soon as I utter the first syllable. I can see everyone looking no, staring, at me from all across the room. Just completely pulling me apart from top to bottom, judging me on the most trivial things like, I don’t know, my outfit for crying out loud. Which it of course took me an hour to pick out that morning. Knowing I’ve done this so many times before, I try to take a deep breath to relieve the color from my face and the nervous tick from my fingers. I’ve always had a problem with public speaking, or anything that had to do with me and the general public, really, so feeling this way wasn’t much of a surprise.

Many people have a monumental fear of public speaking. I found the following quote by comedian Jerry Seinfeld quite funny, yet somewhat true. He stated that “according to most studies, people 's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you 're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.” (Blogspot, 2013). While this is a hyperbole just to show the answer to survey questions by WebMD, I feel like there is a great truth to the fact that public speaking brings great anxiety to many people, including myself. In fact, this class was the one that I had the most angst about once I saw my schedule. This class and fear of speaking in front of strangers became a ferocious untamed beast that was preying on my mind and self-confidence. It was not so bad when practicing alone, with my friends, family or even my learning team but as soon as the camera was rolling that predatory beast became hungry, tearing at my self-conscious and filling me with doubt and negative thoughts. I became so afraid because I was comparing my performance to my peers rather than trying to be my best version of myself. This was a challenge for me, one that I am determined to overcome. I have embraced this challenge and I know that there are several areas I need to improve upon, some areas that I have experienced individual growth already, and I have

The fear of public speaking is greater than the fear of death itself for the average American, and I was no exception. Succeeding in a public speaking course over at the local community college was by no means an easy feat. Throughout the majority of the semester, I struggled to speak well in front of my fellow classmates in the classroom: I was spending too much time reading off of my speaking outline and thus failed to maintain sufficient eye contact. This meant that my speeches were far from being presented extemporaneously (which combines the careful preparation and structure of a manuscript presentation with the spontaneity and enthusiasm of an unrehearsed talk).

I’ve always felt that public speaking is something that has come pretty natural to me. It was throughout high school and again in college that I realize not everyone felt the same way. I found that many people often dread public speaking. In college, it was really exemplified this first semester when I heard that many people had to take a course called Communications 103, which primarily focuses on writing and giving speeches. It didn’t take this course this semester, so all I knew about it was what I had heard through my peers. Some had a similar outlook on public speaking and said they didn’t mind having to give speeches, but others nearly had panic attacks leading up to them. It was this mixed opinion on speeches that made me question why this happens, if there is a way to alleviate the fear, and if a fear of public speaking is an actually thing.

When I have to get in front of people to speak, I always go up there and either say the wrong thing or freeze up and my mind will go blank. This has happened several times in class but once I came to college I have been doing a lot better with talking in front of people and being the center of attention. This class so far has helped me tremendously with this and with having a lot of confidence in myself. When we are in small groups during class I try to speak out more than I did in high school and even lead the conversation sometimes because I know I will be having to do that for my job, so I should just go ahead and get used to it and build my confidence up. Every day I feel like I am getting better at public speaking and not getting nearly as shy. I just went on a leadership retreat last weekend and it was amazing how much easier it was for me to talk in front of everybody there and not have my heart beating fast. We had to share multiple times every day in front of everybody and I got so us to it by the end of the weekend that I wasn’t even thinking about, what if I mess up or anything like that, I just got up and started speaking like it was nothing. It was an amazing experience that will help me with my job and throughout college. I have been starting to answer question in math class without a problem and not overthinking about what I am going to say. I have been trying really hard to stop and think about what I am going to say and tell myself to talk slow and clear so