The Key to Being a Successful Speaker Essay

Communication skills are quite essential in civilized societies. This is due to their numerous conventions in different aspects of life. These skills do not only involve the verbal side but also the nonverbal side. Nonverbal communication importance used to be neglected by individuals in the past. However, in recent years, people are starting to recognize their crucial roles in their daily lives. They are now more interested in the nonverbal phenomenon. Nonverbal communication is dominated by emotions. It is a method of conveying one's feeling including body postures, facial expressions and even physical contact. Although nonverbal communication might be associated with

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.

I am originally from Puerto Rico, which is a country in which communication is an integral part of society. The cultural norm of the Puerto Rican culture is to speak up when necessary and communicate clearly if we want things to be done. At the same time, I believe that in order to produce results, the manner in which communicating takes place, is an extremely important component. My culture also showed me how the emotions used when communicating, such as the use of the hands and body language, will dictate the tone and flow of the communication. The literature suggests that the majority (as much as 76%) of the message we gibe to another person during conversations is carried by non-verbal or para-verbal communication. Thus, we must be very careful and strategic in our use o non-verbal communication (Van Acker, 1997).

Franklin Delano Roosevelt engaged with his audience with the words that he chose to use and the tone he had in his voice. Mr. Roosevelt used emotion in his tone of voice by saying “I regret to tell you that many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu” (Roosevelt, 2017). He used a different tone in his voice when he said this so that way they would feel emotional as he told them about the attack. Mr. Roosevelt used a softer, more calm tone when he told those that many American people had lost their lives. As President, he didn’t use words to

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

An important aspect of public speaking is appearing confident. Through my use of hand gestures and eye contact, I feel I got sense of confidence across to the audience. By using appropriate gestures that corresponded to the topic or sentence I was addressing, it made the speech feel more active and less stagnant. In combination, by using eye contact and switching being the different people in the audience, this was able to make everyone feel like I as truly addressing them. As a result, the speech came across as a little more interesting and a little more engaging for the everyone in the class.

I can see a young and confident man hovering proud amongst the powdered white lines on the grass. His sweat soaked body and open wounds are merely trophies on display for the witnesses of the battle just fought. This is where Amy Cuddy’s speech time warps me to as she discusses the history of the power pose. It is so easy to compare my competitive young self with these facts Amy shares. I would say that there is an undeniable truth that our non-verbal body language will stimulate others into forming judgements and opinions, or even share similar emotions.

In Amy Cuddy’s “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are,” Cuddy argues “... We tend to forget, though, the other audience that’s influenced by our nonverbals, and that’s ourselves. We are also influenced by our nonverbals, our thoughts and our feelings and our physiology.”

In the previous class, we were given the task to complete a ‘Speed Communication Meet & Greet’ where we had a certain amount of time to engage in a conversation with a classmate. Whether we knew the classmate or not, we still had to drive a conversation instead of just sitting next to someone in complete silence. Throughout the exercise, there was plenty of observations not only for myself and the conversations I was engaging in, but also watching the body language of other classmates around me during their conversations.

In the videos, “Eye Contact, Posture, Gestures, Pacing, Fluency, Volume, and Tone” Lily Lamboy, states that learning to speak in front of class is crucial in order to construct a good point. Lamboy presents several points students need to learn when giving a speech. Speakers should maintain eye contact with the audience during their speech. Posture is what speakers should do with their body when speaking in front of others, they should avoid rocking back and forth. Gestures are similar to punctuation the speaker may use appropriate gestures when making a point. For pacing, speakers who get nervous talk fast and ramble should practice speaking slow. Students should maintain fluency when they are speaking by taking a deep breath and avoid using

A study done in 2014 by six health and science researchers compiled data on what affects a tentative crowd. Their research established that, following facial expression, “pitch is the most important feature in emotion communication, followed by duration and loudness” (Cao 2) Therefore, how voice mannerisms appear will sway a pack. It is fair to say that cooing at a hungry pack of wolves will land one on a dinner platter. However, it is more likely that cooing at a woman’s newborn will earn a waitress a slightly bigger tip. A leader speaking to their followers should take after the example of the waitress, depending on his crowd’s emotions. A student leader might keep in mind how tired the students are from school or how excited they are to go on

that it is very hard for me to look at people when I am giving a speech, but it is imperative that I do so. I not only want my audience to understand what I am trying to say to them, but I want them to believe me as well. Also, when you don’t face your audience they tend to lose interest and start conversations or activities of their own. In order to gain the trust and respect of your audience, it is absolutely necessary to look them in the eye when speaking to them.

The Persuasive Speaking was held on 9th of November. The speaker was Amanda E. Rogers. There was a guest speaker, but the name was not listed. The event was a two hours event, it started from 5:30 p.m., but apparently the seminar was extended till 8:30p.m. . Amanda and the guest speaker are from Velocity Performance, a consulting firm in enhancing sales skills.

in public speaking skills and 36% claimed they needed to bone up on their data analysis talents—that includes knowledge of programs like Excel, Tableau, Python, R, etc.” Summarily, this survey reveals that manager--individuals that play an influential role in the hiring process-- see recent college grads as significantly lacking in writing, public speaking, and data analysis skill. Recent college graduates are being seen as undesirable by employees because they are leaving university without a strong command of these essential skills. The undesirability of recently college graduates is further supported by the fact that while millennials (aged 18-29) will make up will be an estimated 46 percent of all U.S. workers by 2020, as of 2015 these individuals make up about 40 percent of the unemployed in the U.S.” While this figure includes millennial without a college degree, Leah Goodman, investigative journalist for Newsweek make sure to note that young college graduates also occupy these ranks. Specifically Goodman presents her the testimony of 26 year old Camille Perry who, despite having a master’s degree, bartends in Portland Oregon. On Perry Goodman writes, “[She] is living with a friend...[and] tells Newsweek she is waitressing while looking for a job better suited to her qualifications.” Here, Perry’s pursuit of a job more fitting of her qualification reveals a mismatch in skills of college graduates and the available jobs. While Perry, having her master’s, is highly

When my partner teacher asked if I wanted to do a lesson on public speaking, of course I said, “Yes,” right away. My mind immediately went to how can I make public speaking interesting for students. Public speaking is a high risk activity for students, especially when they have to get up by themselves and present their learning to the class. I thought my best course of action would be to try and keep the lesson as light hearted as possible by infusing some comedy. Maybe students would not think the stakes were so high if they were expecting their peers to laugh at what they were saying. Thus, the idea of “Mad Libs Public Speaking” was born.