Public Speaking Speech Reflection

In the eleven chapter of A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking, the authors talk about

At first I could barely project my voice for the entire hornline to hear, I was always self conscious and afraid of messing up. My public speaking skills were questionable at best and my fear of messing up in front of everyone made them even worse. Dealing with my eight person section(including myself) wasn’t as taxing but relaying instructions effectively was my biggest problem. Teaching new material as well as

Through videoing myself at the beginning of week one and then at the end of week two I compared the reflection I made watching these videos (Appendix E). In week one when answering questions, I felt I had to answer immediately in week one (Appendix E), compared to week two where I felt I could pause construct the answer then speak with confidence. This has enable me to speak at a comfortable volume without having to strain my voice. I also noticed that with an increase in confidence in what I was saying, students were more likely to engage in class which eliminated a lot of chatter that occurred in week one. I understand that voice is something I must continually work on. My voice will improve once I become more confident in my own ability to assist students when they have questions. Speaking at a lower volume could be less effective in larger classes. I tried this with my year thirteen class which only has fifteen students. As class size increases I will need to implement other strategies which engage all students and reduces the behavioural

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

While the achievements I’ve earned are valuable, what I have learned from this process is significant. I’ve learned how to act in a professional environment and how to be a quality competitor in not just Speech, but in all my activities. Furthermore, I have acquired the ability to digest and comprehend criticism. As well as giving me the opportunity to be a leader on my team, Speech has also taught me to be a leader amongst my peers. To me, Speech is more than a place to excel in speaking, it is where I have gained knowledge and skills that will assist me in my future

The truest transformation from under-the-radar student to confident public speaker was really due to a renewed passion for learning. The proximity to like minded students who were dedicated to school and community reignited my love of learning and of helping others to learn. I pursued a leadership position in a math tutoring program on campus, and designed lessons on the environment

- What I did well during my speech was looking at my audience. I was always facing my audience and have a quick view to my PowerPoint. I believe I did well on these aspects because I wasn’t like the other students always looking at the PowerPoint and not even facing the audience. I know this is a public speaking class and the point is to talk to our audience while facing them.

At the start of the semester I had become more aware and grounded in my voice. In my everyday life, I would notice if I was holding my breath. The reason for this was because over the summer I had to stand-up to one of my shut-up judges, my dad. The incident was extremely emotional, and I coped with it through the use of my actor training; instead of checking out and holding tension, I chose to breathe deeply and stay grounded. This allowed me to speak up even when I was told to shut-up. This awareness of breath was developed through necessity rather than choice. I had to be strong. My strength didn’t only come from being grounded in my breath, but it also came using breathe to stay present in the room. The use of breath also allowed me to go into my body and release the build-up of emotions. As a result of these experiences, my voice was able to drop more consistently to my lower resonator rather than my typical chest voice.

In the first speech for this class, my main goals were to gain confidence to voice my ideas and use speech to make a difference in peoples’ lives, and to practice overcoming my speech anxiety therefore be able to use my nerves to focus myself. Overall, I believe that I did improve in both of these areas as a result of information from the book, mini speeches, and the larger speeches.

I originally signed up for this class to improve my voice and diction. My initial expectation was that I would develop techniques to control my volume my speed and pitch. I strongly believed that this class would prepare me for the various aspects of performing on stage expressly in front of a large audience. This class has by far met all my expectations. Though there were many challenges I overcame each obstacle with perseverance and consistency. I am more confident on stage and no longer thinks that my voice is one of the most dreadful things that I have ever had the unfortunate pleasure of hearing. This new confidence translated into better use of my body to speak to the audience.

Reviewing past peer analysis, one of the issues that came up was my use of a monotone voice. Despite attempting to correct this problem, I was not successful. With my special occasion speech, this was the most important time to address the problem. With my monotone voice, I was unable to truly express any kind of emotion, especially ones appropriate to the situation. As a result, it took away from my overall speech and took away from the occasion.

This public speaking course has taught me alot by helping me to become a better person and by growing me into something I never thought I could be.Speaking out loud always made me nervous, even when I was just reading a sentence from a book to some of my closest friends. Even though we are not even halfway through the school year, I have learned and improved so much. One of the first things this class had taught me was all about body language and how to present yourself to make an impression. Little things that we do can make us seem small, such as slouching, crossing our arms and legs, and looking at the ground, while others make us appear big, for instance, stretching, sitting up straight, and taking up alot space. Properly presenting yourself is important and can make a big difference in your life, whether it is for a job interview, meeting new people, or speaking in front of your peers. I have also learned to control and overcome my nervous habits, for example, playing with my hair, rocking back and forth, and moving my hands. Habits like these show the audience that you are nervous and it may turn their attention away from your speech and onto your actions. The audience-speaker relationship was also a great thing to learn. This relationship shows cause and effect, for example, when you lose the attention of your audience you may begin to second guess yourself leaving you to becoming nervous and self conscious. You then may start to panic and your speech may become a

Initially, when I first registered to enroll for this online Speech class, I did not know what to expect. I thought that we would only meet in order to present the required speeches and then I thought that we would have a virtual classroom to give speeches were we were all online at once. Now I know that both of my guesses were wrong. For our speeches, we either record them online and invite classmates as audience members to watch, or have a live audience of family and/or friends that record you giving your speech in your living room or somewhere similar. When I found out that these were the ways I would be giving my speeches, I was so surprised. When I am speaking in front of a live audience in a classroom, I get so nervous, so I thought that this method of giving presentations might be less anxious for me.

In public speaking of any form to a diverse group of individuals, my main consideration as the speaker is my concentration on the audience that I am speaking to. In starting an effective presentation,

My strengths include not interrupting the speaker, maintaining eye contact to show I am actively listening, and being able to think critically about complex topics. Not interrupting a speaker and maintaining eye contact are skills I acquired early in my career to display my engagement and respect for the speaker. Understanding complex topics is something I continually learn how to do. This is aided by conceptualizing detailed knowledge and constantly learning more in the areas related to my field. My main weaknesses are the following. I don’t paraphrase the message to ensure I comprehend it. Typically, halfway through a presentation or meeting I have already formed my judgements of the speaker and the content. Often, I become distracted by a single point mentioned and am unable to identify all of a speaker’s main points. Now that I have identified my primary weaknesses, I can begin to improve upon them by altering my