For this homework, I'd like you to spend some time reflecting on one of your major speeches for this class. Choose either your 3- or 5-minute speech and write about 300 words answering the following questions:
- How did you feel this speech went?
- Explain how you prepared for and practiced this speech.
- What score would you have given yourself?
- Choose one area that you wish you could have improved upon and talk about it.
- What did you take away from this speech that will help you in the final speech as well as in future speeches?
Your grade will not be affected in any way by the responses you give in this reflection.
At our last class, I gave a three minute speech in memorial to my grandfather, Leo Brown, and my limited experiences with the man, coupled with different aspects of his life. I feel the speech, overall, went very well. While I was not very close with my grandfather when he was alive, I still couldn't help but feel slightly emotional when reading and rehearsing my speech. In preparation, I typed some notes beforehand and practiced reciting the speech in my room. My original concern was that I would be speaking too quickly, but in reality, my original speech was over six minutes. I worked on tapering it back, and when I finally presented it, my speech was approximately 4 and a half minutes. I personally would have given myself an A for my presentation, as Professor Romans told me that going over as I did would not affect my grade. I feel I earned this grade because my voice and rate of delivery remained steady, and I cannot think of an instance where I had a major chocking point during my speech. I am proud of the presentation I gave. The area I feel needs improvement would be an internal way to monitor time. It would be a simple matter if Professor Romans could provide silent, visual cues for when we are nearing the time limit while speaking. After giving this speech and realizing "huh, speaking in class isn't so bad," I feel that I can take my confidence and apply it to future speaking assignments. With a little practice, I feel I can become much more precise in timing my speeches, particularly for the final presentation. I also feel that with experience, I can also rely on notes less when it comes to delivering a prepared, planned speech. This will allow me to display a greater degree of professionalism and make more contact with my audience, giving my speech a greater degree of impact, and consequently making it more memorable.
ReplyDeleteI feel that my 3-minute speech went pretty well. It took me a while to figure out what kind of speech I wanted to deliver. Normally you should plan to give your speech on something you are really interested. It was difficult for me to figure out something I was interested. I’ve never really put too much thought into peoples speeches. This assignment forced me to do this. It put me in the shoes of King George who was delivering his speech to the country before they entered into World War II. It was difficult speech to give because I wanted to deliver it the way the King himself did. He spoke very slowly and carefully and he seemed to pause after every two syllables. During my delivery in class I felt as if I nailed these aspects. It took me about one afternoon of practice to get a hang of the speech. I basically just delivered as if I was in class and made sure I got my pauses right. After a few reps I felt as if I was ready to go. The Kings speech was sort of a back up plan for me though. I wanted to get up front and tell the class the story from high school on senior skip day, but I wasn’t sure if that would have fit the criteria.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I will take away from this speech for the next speeches is that I need to be more personable with my audience. In this speech it was difficult for me since I was giving the King Speech but in the future I plan on choosing topics that allow me to be more interactive and personable. This is a talent I believe I have that I would like to capitalize on.
For my 3-minute speech I did a maid of honor speech for my best friend. I felt that the speech went better than I thought it would. It by no means went perfectly but it wasn't a disaster.
ReplyDeleteI prepared for the speech by writing a draft and reading it through to see if it was long enough. I elaborated on things to make time and make the speech more interesting. I treated it like an essay in how I would edit it by reading it aloud to listen to wording. I made small changes to things that felt awkward to say or didn't contribute substance to the speech as a whole. I also rehearsed a couple times alone, then slowly built up my rehearsal audience to a small group of friends. I didn't want to be looking at the paper a lot so I tried to pick things that I could just go off of memory and freestyle. I'd probably give myself a B for this speech. My timing was good and I made sure to speak up but there were points where I stumbled, forgot to breathe and got (apparently) visibly shaky. One aspect I'd like to improve is my anxiousness. I came to a point where I became extremely self aware and that was when I began to lose focus and composure. What I took away from this speech is that its not as bad as I make it out to be.
For my demonstrative speech I used something I was very familiar with. I remember before I left home I tested all my tools to make sure they work. The tools did. 15 minutes before class I mentally visualized how I wanted the speech to go and how much time I should spend on each part to prepare. Also I listened to some music from a band that usually gets me full of energy and fearless (Rings of Saturn, if your curious) to get me in the mindset. This speech was a tad tough considering I couldn't literally do it to practice. I felt confident because of the many times I had done this task of stringing guitars. I just went through the parts over and over again to make sure I left nothing out.
ReplyDeleteAfter I conducted the the speech and went though several adversities I felt that I should of prepared for them and that's why in my mind I scored poorly on the speech. I should of unscrewed the back of the guitar before hand because I knew from previous experience this guitar has given me trouble other times. Also should of brought a sharper cutting utensil. What I took away from this speech? No matter how prepared you may think you are things can go wrong and sometimes triple checking doesn't hurt. Also that I'm proud of myself for not panicking and keeping a cool head under pressure. Overall I felt the speaking portion went fine the demonstrating was horrible.
This past week I gave my demonstrative speech in class on how to swing a bat for fast pitch softball. I think this speech went okay, but it was not as smooth as I expected it to go. I practiced it and I was not too nervous. It seemed like it would be easy because I was talking about something I know and love. To prepare, I typed up a few points I wanted to make sure to hit. I walked through it a few times with the bat in my hands in my living room. I went through it three or four times and by the last two tries I barely had to use my notes at all. When I got into the speech, I was using my notes a little, but I was telling a personal story so I was just checking to make sure I hadn’t missed anything that would be important later. All of a sudden, as I started to demonstrate, my hands were shaky and my voice sounded shaky to me as well. I did not feel nervous, but I was acting like I was. I would have given myself a decent grade, but it was not perfect by any means. Maybe a B+? I wish I could have been more confident and leaned on my notes a little less during the demonstrations, because after I noticed the shakiness I turned heavily to my bullet points. I think it was really helpful to have the audience know they were going to have an opportunity to participate if they just stayed with me through the introduction. I felt that people were paying more attention because they knew that someone would get to use a pitching machine and it was something different. I will take that away from this speech and remember for the future that people like to be engaged. Not all of my speeches will be followed with a pitching machine, but they can somehow work in something that will engage the audience in a similar way.
ReplyDeleteTwo weeks ago, I presented my demonstrative speech on how to make a pizza. I work at a pizzeria as a waitress and the chefs are constantly making pizzas. Since I am right next to the pizzeria station, I am watching them make the pizza step by step, which is why I decided to pick this as my topic. Since I do not work that often, I went into work just to make my outline for my presentation. Just to make sure that I covered every point, I presented my outline to the cooks. Although they laughed at me, they told me I presented it very well. If I would have presented my speech in front of the workers, I definitely would have given myself a 10, but since it was in front of my class I know I messed up and got very nervous, so probably an 8.5. I was so familiar with my topic that I do not think I explained it in great detail, but other than that I am pretty confident. However, I have a tendency to freeze when I go in front of my classmates. One area that I wish I could improve his my anxiety while speaking. Every single time I present anything in front of my friends of family I nail it, but when it is in front of unfamiliar people I choke up and start to ramble. It is so embarrassing because I know it is obvious, but I definitely want to improve on it. After watching other speeches and reviewing my own, I think that engaging my classmates in my presentation was a definite advantage and I intend to use that again. People and even myself get easily distracted, but when people are physically moving it helps them concentrate. In addition, I think bringing in food was also a plus because who does not like food. Once people saw that I had food in my hand, they gave me their full attention. Overall, I am very pleased with my presentation and plan on refining some of my weaknesses when it comes to public speaking.
ReplyDeleteA couple of weeks ago I presented proper CPR technique to the class. I thought it went well but my delivery and use of props could've been better. For example, I had the last minute idea to actually use a cpr mannequin. I couldn't find one so I ended up digging up an occupational therapy one that didn't have the appropriate body parts. So in the future if I were to do this again I would obviously want equipment that would fit into the demonstration better. I probably would've given myself an 8 or 9 based off of that. I didn't like that I went over the time limit by a few minutes. It wasn't substantial in the sense that the audience was asleep at the end but I still want to be able to plan a speech to fit within a certain time constraint and I feel like I failed to do that. It is harder with a demonstrative speech though as sometimes things don't go as planned and not everything is written on paper. I prepared for this by 1) going to a CPR class, 2) reading my material on CPR, and 3) I've performed CPR many times at my job so it is something I feel extremely comfortable doing in front of people. Going to a CPR class helped because I had already seen one person present this skill so it gave me some ideas to go about doing it myself. The one thing I didn't anticipate and I would take from this speech is to really plan out talking while demonstrating a skill. You're moving a lot in front of the audience and it's actually easier than it sounds to get out of breath while moving. Additionally you definitely want to make sure if you're demonstrating a skill that you have mastered it and that you're comfortable doing it to the point where you can demonstrate it and not have to even think about what you're doing. If you can just go through the motions off of muscle memory then thats one less thing you have to worry about because now you can focus solely on your verbal delivery while appearing to be very comfortable doing whatever you're doing in front of the audience. Otherwise the audience is going to pick up on you not really having a mastery of whatever you're showing and they honestly aren't going to believe you as much. So thats a good lesson I'd take from it. Ultimately the speech went well and I would only change some minor things.
ReplyDeleteOne of my major speeches was a demonstrative speech in which I was allotted five minutes to demonstrate how to do a card trick. This speech I believe was one of my better during this class. I started the presentation by showing the class the magic card trick I had prepared. This was one of the most difficult things I had to do this semester because I was nervous and for the trick a little sleight of hand was needed. I was able to pull off the trick pretty well. When explaining how to perform the trick I made a mistake and skipped a whole step in the magic trick process. This went unnoticed to most but it was brought to my attention and I went back and explained the step I missed. When preparing for this speech I bought a new deck of cards specifically for that class, as it is easier to perform with a new deck and I wrote myself a little notecard with key points I needed to cover during my presentation. The presentation I had planned to be more of freestyle because I knew the trick so well and I did not want to sound scripted. Also, I planned a back up trick so that in the case I was to fast with explaining I could use up some time with a second magic trick. I practiced the night before multiple times with a few of my friends but that was all. If I could give myself a score for this presentation it would be an 8 out of 10. This is because I skipped a step when explaining which is critical to the trick and I feel with more preparation I could’ve more clearly demonstrated everything there was to know. This presentation I believe will help me in future speeches because after the speech I realized that not many noticed or cared about the mistake that I had made and this could help me to quickly overcome other small mistakes when I am public speaking.
ReplyDeleteFor my three minute speech, I recited my wedding vows. I was extremely nervous, as I have never said them to anyone else before, let alone an entire room of people. However, I knew I wanted to practice my vows, so that I would be ready to say them at my wedding in June.
ReplyDeleteBefore hand, I read them over a couple of times, just to make sure they sounded good and that I was comfortable with them. I am generally not the type of person to display affection to the world, and I sometimes have a hard time expressing my emotions appropriately.
At the start of the speech, I began to choke on my words a little bit. It was a very personal thing to say in front of so many people I did not know, and the words were very emotional to me. However, I was able to regain my composure and follow through. I found that focusing on the people in the audience, especially the girls, made it a lot easier.
I would grade myself with a low A, as I feel I completed the speech well, but not perfectly. I would have liked to have spoken more fluidly and with more confidence. Making this speech makes me feel sure in my abilities to say my vows come my wedding day. I am sure it will come more naturally when I am not looking out at strangers, but rather at my husband.