Speech Apprehension

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

I hope to control my anxiety while speaking in front of a group, since there might be a situation in my field that requires me to inform others of daily logs or protocols. It would be fulfilling to get others passionate about a subject that I favor and means a lot to me, as well as presentations are an expected process in future classes and need to be mastered.

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

To function effectively in today’s society people must communicate with one another. Yet for some individuals communication experiences are so unrewarding that they either consciously or unconsciously avoid situations where communication is required. (McCroskey & Richmond, 1979) The term ‘communication apprehension’ was coined by James McCroskey (1976a) and is defined as “an individual’s level of fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons” (McCroskey, 1984). In the last two decades communication apprehension and related constructs, such as reticence and unwillingness to communicate, have received extensive research and theoretical attention by scholars in communication and

Whether I like it or not I been given the opportunity to talk to large crowds like a squadron or just a couple of people in the class. My problems have always been the same getting shy, anxiety, and even sweating. Learn to analyze the size of the audience, I want to be able to captivate my audience and overall I just need to find the confidence in myself to do it.

Actually, not too long ago I was reasonably confident and had no problems with talking to people. This all changed the day we were given the assignment of a presentation. The word presentation already sends shivers down my spine thinking about it. Everyone hates them, right? Not me. Not when I was in first year anyway. Truth be told I was ecstatic to do this presentation, I loved speaking infront of others, forcing them to laugh at my "witty" jokes and boring them to death with things I considered interesting. When the word "presentation" or "solo talk" was mentioned, I used to jump for joy. Now, I shrink into my seat and stare at my desk, hoping it will go away. I would spend hours on talks, preparing them and memorising them. A few years down the line I would find myself struggling to write notes as I begin to think about standing in front of an audience, causing my heart to beat rapidly and my hands to shake. It's not fair, really. Even now I still panic when trying to think of what to say, as it has to be

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

I used the search engine Google with the search term “public speaking fear” and it brought up a great deal of interesting websites pertaining to public speaking. The first one I decided to peruse was 5 Tips to Reduce the Fear of Public Speaking on Psychology Today’s website. I learned that public speaking is the number one fear in America, while the fear of death is second in line. This means that we’re more afraid of speaking in public than we are of dying. I also learned five tips on how to reduce public speaking nervousness.