MY BEST ADVICE
The best advice I have offered during the semester was during our 3rd speech. For that speech we had to talk about the importance of someone in our life. During one of our dry-runs, I had recommended a classmate to add a story that added as to why this person was important.
WHY ITS MY BEST ADVICE
I think that this is my best piece of advice because it seemed to be beneficial to this person. The addition of the story was able to get them into the time frame needed, but also it made their speech more interesting, rather than just having facts about this person. This advice was able to help my classmate, which is why I think that it’s my best piece of advice offered throughout the 13+ weeks.
BEST ADVICE FROM PEERS
The best advice that was offered to me by a peer was that I should take occasional breaths during my speeches. When I am giving a speech I tend to get flustered and it doesn’t really help me when I am trying to meet the time limit, but it also causes me to just give my speech within one breath. So this advice given to me was really helpful.
WHY ITS THEIR BEST ADVICE
I think that this is the best advice I have received from a peer, because it helps me lower my anxiety level. The breaths that are added allows me to pace myself and calm down as I go through my speech. This advice also helped me reach my time limit for the speech. From this I have received comments saying that I have a clear voice and that I seem comfortable presenting, which means that the piece of advice was really helpful in moving me to be better at public speaking.
BIG REFLECTIVE MOMENT
Before taking this class, I hated presenting, I didn’t like how everyone in the class was just sitting there staring at me, this caused a lot of problems during my first speech such as fidgeting, mumbling, or speeding through the speech/presentation. To me my big reflective moments are when I was able to stop fidgeting with my sleeves and knowing that my voice was clear throughout. Although I knew that I had other things to improve on, but those two were my biggest problems, so when I reflected on this speech I was glad to have seen that I am improving.
Journal 9
For our second speech, we were to teach the class a skill that we know well. After giving my second speech, I felt that it was better than my first. This may be because the speech was about a skill that we can demonstrate. I believe that this speech was better than my first speech. Since it was one of our skills of interest, I felt like I was able to explain what I wanted better than the previous speech. This is because of my interest in the topic of the speech and the preparation that was put into this speech. In my opinion, the dry-run for this speech seemed to have helped decrease the anxiety of having to stand in front of the class. With the dry-run, I felt that I was eased into the speech, instead of being tossed in front of a group of people. During this speech, I was able to have a clear voice and I tried not to fidget with my sleeves or my paper. Although, based on the feedback I received, I still need to work on my eye contact and use less filler words. I also think that my conclusion was rushed, due to my nervousness. Overall, I think that besides my conclusion, everything else seems to have gone pretty well.
WHY THESE BIG REFLECTIVE MOMENT MATTER
In my opinion, these two are my big reflective moments, because I think that’s when I realized that public speaking isn’t too bad. Before public speaking has always been my biggest nightmare and with the addition of a time limit made things worse. However, after each speech I think that I am improving, especially on my fidgeting and mumbling problem.
