Public Speaking Anxiety and Its Effect on Students

Communication apprehension has played a huge role on my life. Growing up I thought I was a social butterfly, not worrying about what people thought about me or how they viewed me. I had some great friends growing up that were always supportive of me. We would hang out all the time and meet new people and just have fun. It wasn’t until I was a little bit older that I learned of the fear of public speaking.

Public speaking is a must needed skill in today’s business environment that, much like any skill, requires discipline to master. Public speaking classes have many benefits, including gaining confidence through practice to advance professional goals (O'Hair, Stewart, & Rubenstein, 2015). Additionally, oral and written communication skills are the most highly sought after skills from organizations seeking to hire college graduates (O’Hair et al., 2015). The Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety (PRPSA) is a self-assessment consisting of 34 questions regarding communicating with others (CSU-Global, 2016). This paper will explore the results of my PRPSA self-assessment, analyze the results, and opine on how the results of the assessment may

Nervousness is something that is very common when it comes to public speaking. Many great public speakers had that very same problem. Such as Abraham Lincoln, Margaret Sanger and Winston Churchill. Some ways to manage your nervousness can be thinking positive, preparing extensively for your speech and not letting yourself get worried about looking nervous.

The fear of public speaking can prevent people from attending events that focus on individual attention and can limit the opportunities required for the progress of their career. According to Pillay (2016), “Fear is your brain's alarm system that is triggered by sudden motions, sounds, or anything that could threaten your safety or survival (para, 2). Fear is not always bad. Primitive reaction to fear is to either take flight, meaning avoid the situation that causes fear or to fight, meaning stay and face the situation to the best of one’s ability. There are mainly two reasons why people fear speaking, first is when they are not prepared and second is that are too concerned about themselves

Public speaking is the number one fear in the world, which shows that the number one fear is really a deep fear of rejection from the connection of others. The narrator in “Typical First Year Professor”, who had a fantastic education and experience, has public speaking issues. She explains how her fear physically affects her in, “Ten minutes before my first class, I run to the bathroom and vomit. I’m afraid of public speaking, which

Public speaking used to be a daunting task that I would try to avoid as often as possible, often I would be the last to present a project and would refrain myself from having to read outloud. When I would speak my head would fill with thoughts of how other were perceiving me and how easy it would be to mess up. With this nervous mentality my speaking was stuttered and confusing.

One of my more vivid experiences of public speaking was when I was taking a class at a community college. While taking this class I would often have to give speeches and demonstrations in front of the class. As I was waiting for my turn to give my very first speech, I was very certain that I would have no problems at all, it would a piece of cake, or so I thought. All of a sudden, I hear my name being called as it was my turn to deliver a knockout performance, but as I stood in front of that small class of people I just blanked out. An overwhelming amount of anxiety came over of me. I could feel my heart beginning to race and my hands starting to sweat. I could not for the life of me remember what I was going supposed say. In addition, the

I always stress myself out before, and during these experiences. I'd love to say that having my first oral-only presentation got me over my fear of public speaking. But it didn't. Today, though, I can say that I remember the days leading up to the presentation much better than I can remember actually presenting. While this experience didn't change my fears, it did change the way I will go into future presentations or public speaking requirements. Maybe the nerves going into something like this will die down slightly if I think about how short the thing I'm dreading will actually be. I think that this presentation experience sort of sums up my first semester of high school. I came into this school terrified. Even though there have been struggles in the time I have been here, they haven't been nearly as bad as I initially

Claudia Stepanovich gave me a message through power point that I completely agree with and that is that public speaking is not a skill you are born with; it is something that you have to learn and get better at. This message spoke to me, because I am extremely nervous about public speaking and I always avoid it when I can; when I can’t avoid it I always get nervous and start to stutter and forget information.

The third chapter of a Pocket Guide to Public Speaking is about anxiety in relations to

Let me start by saying I was nervous, which in itself caught me by surprise. I consider myself a fairly confident person; I’ve always experienced butterflies prior to any public presentation but this was more than that. The nervousness led to other issues such as the vocal characteristics of my presentation. For instance, I stumbled on my words during the introduction, tongue-tied as it were. I saw the words in front of me but couldn’t seem to verbalize them. I stopped, re-grouped and moved forward. I continued with a number of vocalized pauses which prove not only

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

A study was done that showed men have more trouble and anxiety than women do speaking to another culture. When you get nervous about public speaking, your brain tries to help you by making your hands shake, knees quiver, and stomach flutter. Which really makes you more nervous than before. Whatever the reason of your nervousness, your brain gets conflicted. You want to do great, but you're not sure if you can actually pull it off. Your breathing increases, your adrenaline starts to pump, and your blood starts rushing through your veins. Then your anxiety starts up, with rapid heartbeats and perspiration

For as long as I can remember, public speaking has always been one of my greatest weaknesses. Whether it’s a simple in-class presentation or a speech in front of an auditorium filled with people, I can barely get my words out from the anxiety and

“Sweaty palms, shaking hands, dry mouth and muscle tension mean for many of us, that we are about to speak in public. Couple this fear of speaking in public with performing or speaking in another language and the success of the speaker may be dramatically compromised” (Leigh, 2009). By having to speak in a foreign language, the amount of fear in us grows and transforms into the feeling of anxiety, which is scientifically named as a Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA). The fear of dealing in a foreign language environment is most felt when a student must perform orally in some way but it can also occur when