Public Speaking Reflection

When it comes to public speaking, I tend to fumble my words. I do not always communicate my thoughts as I would like. In the past, I was hindered from public speaking due to my intense stage fright. Oddly enough, I am heavily involved at my church, and they have asked me to speak on several occasions over the course of this year. I did not ask for this, but I suppose it is God’s calling for me. I preached my first sermon at age seventeen in front of over 700 people. Shortly after, my high school asked me to speak in chapel for over 400 students around my age. Those are a few examples that have gotten me to this point, today. I have had very little professional instruction with public speaking, so I anticipate learning a great amount this year, including: word flow, different tactics, memorization, and gaining more confidence. I do not enjoy public speaking but I feel it is necessary for my career. I truly am a living, breathing paradox.

My visual aid was the strongest part about my speech. I brought in the ingredients to make Tiramisu to show which brands I like to use for the recipe. I also prepared Tiramisu for the class as my hold interest technique. To relate the topic to the audience, I told them that they could make this recipe when they want to impress someone. My credibility was also convincing as I informed the class I had researched and compiled the best recipe. My introduction in general was concise and convinced the audience pay attention to the rest of my speech. I also thought my tone was conversational and not too formal.

In the informative speech, I didn’t many things that were admired and distracting during the speech, and I hope to improve on those distracting interrupting acts on my next speech. During the speech, I did some items that were a little distracting through the speech. As I watched my speech I noticed I had some awkward pauses, bad transitions, some um’s, and a little stuttering throughout the speech. If you look at the speech I tend to stutter which is a little distracting. Talking about the festival Diwali I talk about Rangoli and its colored pattern I stutter and forget what I am explaining. Another thing I could improve on is my transitions when hearing the speech, the transitions are a little rough and not as smooth. During the transition when I switch from talking about the celebrations to the language I say, “with all these celebrations it tends to bring many religions and languages together” doesn’t really make sense and could be spoken a little smoother. Stuttering is also a part of the speech I did during the speech which distracting. Throughout the speech, I stutter during different parts and one of those parts being when I am talking about the different traditions when eating Indian food. I say, “some of the traditions when people eat in India are well we all we eat on our hands,” which is a little annoying. During the speech, I also said um’s during the speech. When citing my source on languages I said some ums, repeating the citation from the notecard. During the speech I had a little tough time with stuttering at moments, saying some um’s, bad transitions, and some pauses in the future I tend to improve it for the next speech.

One of the things I noticed in my speech was how many times I looked at the screen. I didn’t realize how many times I looked at my prop until I watched myself on video. It was distracting and took away from what I was saying to my audience. Additionally, I feel like I could have improved speaking about the different experiments performed. I feel like they were rushed and I should have stuck to talking about only one or two experiments instead. With my time being rushed, I feel like I couldn’t explain as much of the experiments as I wanted to or as in depth. Lastly, I should have worked on the conclusion for my speech. I wasn’t able to come up with a good conclusion, so it felt as if I left some of the speech left hanging. I mentioned ethical issues performed in the experiments without actually going over it in the speech. Next time, I know I will come up with a solid ending and just wrapping up ideas I already went over in class. I know that for my persuasive speech, I will work on my eye contact, slowing down, and coming up with a solid ending.

Public speaking has always been very hard for me, I've never been the type to stand in front of an audience and speak or do a presentation. No matter how many times I've done presentations I've always get nervous or shy and always forget what I rehearsed. In the military I was training Nco, everytime we had a new marine check in to our unit or are shop. I would be the one to give them and the A presentation on what is expected of them and also give them information about the unit and our shop. In my opinion the Marine Corp prepared me for public speaking, especially if you where lower rank and your senior enlisted would throw you to the wolves and send you up there to give the

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 think what I need to improve on is when in fear, try to calm myself down or else I will forget everything I have practice. When speaking, I should work on my articulation and tone. My tone of voice did not have a lot of emotion into it. I seem to have been a little monotone with the way I presented the speech. I had a little rise and fall, but I should work on raising my voice for important points and bring back down to facts and evidence that back up my points.

Persuasive speech outline purpose: To persuade my audience to donate blood through the American Red Cross. Introduction:

I have given quite a few speeches in the last few years, even at such a young age. Though I was proficient when I started this class, I have improved even more in these last six weeks. My strengths definitely fall in my organization and content. However in my delivery I often lack in vocal variety and volume, mostly due to nerves, and I often rushing my conclusions. Due to the rank I have in organizations like the National Honor Society, I will often have to speak in public or address my peers so I plan on continuing to practice for my speeches out loud and hopefully I will improve.

After completing the speech, I thought I did good in some area and can improve other. While giving this speech I was able to focus on my topic and utilize given time. I thought I won’t be able to stand in front of the class and speak for that long, but I went over the time limit. I’m sure I was able to explain the subject matter and entertain audiences. I also believe I speak with a voice that is able to reach all audiences.

Well, the speech was really fun to prepare for it, even though the grade is not what I expected. It pretty awesome too when giving the speech because I can see the audiences inner desire. And their laugh and some smile, it shows it all. I got their attention when I first open up the slide because that was the moment when our generation mostly looking for. And that was love, but that not what they expected. I was laughing inside because of that. While giving the speech, I notice I made too many mistakes and know what my weakness, strength is. I can see my strength in organizing my speech with the step of Monroe’s Motivated Sequence because of that my speech went a lot smoother. In addition to that, I was able to get my points across the audience. The thesis of my topic was easily understood by the audience because my earlier slide about finding love caught their attention. That was brilliant, but I can see that my transition is not smooth on every slide. And that is my weakness I have to work on. It's still not as bad as my communication because I know that I’m quadruple-lingual. That make it really hard for me to speaking

For my own part in the speech I noticed that I was speaking at a good pace but still needed to maybe speak a bit faster. I also mispronounced a few words and used too many filler words like “umm” instead of pausing. In my visual delivery I felt like I did a good job in except my movement of my head seemed more sporadic than I remember. Even though this was a video and had no real live audience to present to, I think I did well connecting to the audience. The presentation aids that I put into the power point for was great for visualizing our ideas to the audience. I did feel that some slides had too many pictures. The video I found also made it easier for the audience to relate to the topic.

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 first speech was the Most Embarrassing Moment speech. I honestly was still so nervous to record this even though I would just be looking at my computer screen. It felt kind of weird, almost as if I was video chatting with myself. After I memorized my speech and sent in my recording, I immediately assumed that I failed because the professor would think that I was too close to the screen or I was too loud or I moved my head around a lot. Then I ended up getting an A on it. Everything I thought that I did wrong was either irrelevant or did not distract from my presentation as a whole. Since I only missed one point, I can say that what I did well was all the

I have learned my strengths and my weaknesses as a leader. I have learned that some of my strengths during public speaking are being confident, relaxed, and being able to articulate my points very well. I learned that my weakness was not including as much detail as I could have. During the rest of this course and in the future I plan to make a conscious effort to make sure that I not only provide details, but that I make sure that I provide enough details for other people to understand all that I am saying or doing when I am being a leader. Now that I am fully aware of my strengths and weaknesses I can practice them and grow throughout the duration of the course