Monday, June 22, 2009
Self-Critique - Day Section
The last blog is all about you. Discuss what your strengths and improvements are as you complete this course. What ways have you turned your improvements into strengths? In what ways have you improved? What areas do you still need to continue to focus your speaking skills? Improving as a speaker requires that you remain conscious a weak habit so you can turn it into a need strength. What is at least one habit that you need to remain conscious about to improve upon? You post with details. I am looking for both quantity and quality in this post. Be write thoughtfully, with details and organization.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
I will be the first to admit that I am a horrible public speaker. But, after taking this class I have made some positive changes that can help me become a better public speaker. I know I will never fully conquer the anxiety I get before speaking in front of a crowd, but in these five weeks I have learned ways to supress them so they won't be so obvious to the audience. I will most likely always get nervous before i have to make a speech, but by taking this class I have learned certain techniques to "calm me down" while i'm up in front of a classroom, which makes my speech go a lot easier. Two of my biggest problems when I would get up to speak are eye contact and moving around too much. After doing these three speeches, I think my eye contact has gotten better; it still isn't the best but it's a lot better than it has been over the years that's for sure. I'm still a little fidgity, and i shake a lot, but as long as I smile when I talk and try and show passion when i'm speaking, it isn't as noticable. Another issue I have is I speak with my hands a little too much. I don't know though, that just might be one habit that won't be so easy to break. But, I think I calmed down with the hand gestures a little bit...maybe. I'll have to continue working on that one. Overall, I believe I made some improvements that I will certainly remember for the next time I have to speak in front of a crowd. And hopefully I will continue making more improvements! Also, after our lesson today on listening, I've realized that I can be considered a bad listener. My two biggest problems with listening are, i get distracted very easily which for me leads to day dreaming. Those are just a couple more things I will need to work on myself now that class has ended.
I think my biggest improvement from the start of this class is my mental state before and during a speech. I used to get so anxious before speaking to the point where it really got in the way of delivering the message. I think preparation has been the biggest tool in helping me get rid of these jitters. I’ve never known to make a speaking outline before a speech or presentation. It really helped me with fluidly progressing through the speech by organizing my introduction, main points, and conclusion. I’ve also never prepared transitions before a speech. I usually would just wing it during the speech. It definitely made the speech more fluid, and gave me direction when talking. It also helped to get rid of words like umm and uhh. Although, I do still need some improvements. I need to be more enthusiastic about my topics or no one is going to be interested in what I am saying. I need to smile or use more facial expressions because I think that I look too serious so it just seems like I am spitting out information. I also think I need to practice making my voice more assertive by using more high and low tones to make my message more clear. One habit I need to remain conscious of is eye contact. I have improved but I still tend to shift from note cards to people. I would like to become more comfortable with the audience and stop using note cards as a crutch. I've also realized I need to improve my listening skills. My biggest problem is daydreaming. I drift off very easily. I think I can improve upon this by taking more notes and being a more active listener. When someone speaks I can ask myself questions about the topic. This will help avoid down time that leads to daydreaming. But overall, this class has drastically helped me overcome my fear of public speaking.
Throughout this course, my public speaking skills have improved dramatically. I have learned to feel more comfortable in front of a room full of people. Before taking this course I would get so nervous before that I would be shaking and jittery effecting the way I felt when I started to speak. I also have learned how to speak persuasively. I can honestly say I was very nervous about that particular speech because I wasn't sure how I would be at getting the audience on my side with a topic. When preparing for the speech, I practiced out loud and used a very assertive voice. In learning to do so, I was very successful in my delivery and pleased with the overall impression I had on the audience. This class has helped me to organize my speech which makes me feel not only well prepared, but comfortable. I know to use transitions to get from one topic to the other, so the audience can easily follow along. These things are skills that I will definitely take for the future. Although I have improved, I still have areas where I need improvement. Something I have noticed that I need to focus on is my eye contact. I have learned that looking around the room when speaking is not necessarily eye contact. I need to look into the audience, individually, to properly connect with them and hold their interest. As far as listening, I need to break the habit of daydreaming, This is something that is a HUGE challenge for me. I am always thinking about what I need to do next, or what is going on the next day etc. I need to focus on that time and what the other person is communicating to me. I may need to ask more questions so that I am interacting with the person I am speaking to. This will make them feel like I am really listening to them, and it will hold on my interest. Overall, I have learned so much during this public speaking class that will continue to guide me over the years. I will definitely be taking the "fake it until you make it" motto, in not showing the audience I am nervous at all. I can't wait to use these skills I have developed and to continue to work on the things that need improvement.
Taking this class has helped me make improvements in many areas of speaking in public. For example, one big issue i have is just standing in front of the classroom talking to my peers about an issue or just my passion. I learned that i have to just forget about being nervous so that i can get my point out clearly, so most of the time all i have to do is "fake it." Just in five weeks, i took in a lot of information and techniques on how to speak in public whether its a big group or not. Like the kinds of transitions i should use, and to start my speech off with something that will grab peoples attention. By writing the outlines it helped me a lot to have an organized speech for me to practice from. Although it was very tough to do with only a couple days, i did it anyway and proved to myself that i can easily write out a decent speech.Another problem i had speaking in front of the class was not preparing myself well enough to be able to talk in front of the class. Most of the time i would use my note cards to help me out and remind myself what i was going to say next, but i would also read off complete sentences from them. i need to teach myself to prepare myself for a speech.One more issue that is very bad was the "umms" and "ands" i would pause for a bit and just randomly say umm, or and. that is something that will be very hard to get over but i know of i catch myself doing it, i can get rid of it. But one positive improvement i made was my eye contact, from the being i had too little eye contact but as we continued our speeches i made very much improvement. Overall i am proud of how i did during these five weeks. Just one problem with listening is day dreaming, which is what i have been doing for a long time, but i know if i gave myself that energy to listen i would be able to be a good listener.
With this class coming to its conclusion, I have to say that I have learned a lot. When I first came into the class I was not very confident in my public speaking skills and I actually feared taking this class. Now that I have taken the class I must say I am more confident. I do not get the dizzy “oh my gosh, I sound like an idiot” feeling when I get up to speak. I have learned that its not about me and that it is about the information that am telling everyone about. I have learned to make an incredible outline that I know I will use in the future for other classes and papers. Although I feel a lot more comfortable getting up in front of a crowd, I still get a little nervous and tend to talk fast. I need to really work on that. I talk fast normally and when I get up in front of a group I talk even faster and I know I lose my audience to that. Also I feel that I lack eye contact with my audience, which I will continue to work on when I get up to do presentations at school. Also from today’s class I learned that I need to stop daydreaming! I realized that I do that a lot…I tend to drift off and think about what I have to do later or what I am going to wear out and this does not benefit anyone. I need to work on keeping my energy up and also giving “uninteresting” topics a chance. Overall I thought this was a wonderful class and really learned a lot from it. I really enjoyed the way you taught it as well. I am glad to say that I survived the class that I always feared.
So before starting this class I was kind of excited because I like public speaking weird I know but I like talking infront of people. But I always knew that I need to work on a few things such as my standing while I am giving my speech. Like dont cross my legs dont move my hands to much and dont walk back and forth like I normally do. Also I knew that I need to work on how I present my speeches and how a speak when I say them. I never had a really loud voice and I was always told I mumbal so right there I knew that I need to work on being more clear and not to studder like I do as well. As the class went on I learned a lot of good pointers but still after my first and second speech I still didn't seem like I was really confented up there. After the third speech I felt like I was a little bit more clear up there and had a little more confences. Even though the class is over I still learned a lot of pointers that I am diffiantly going to use in other classes. I know that now I need to have confences in my voice and be clear also I need to look not so nervous when I am up there. Even though I am not nervous when I get up there I seem to look like I am. Now that I know what I need to work on I can work on them and get better at it. Hopefully I will be able to use all my pointers at any speech that I need to give in any class.
Throughout this public speaking course, I feel that I have improved and gained a greater confidence while standing in front of a group and presenting. I feel like some of my strengths are that I speak with a definite tone of voice; I feel like I speak pretty clearly and the audience is able to understand me well. Another strength I have is that I feel like I really know my information. When I am researching a topic, I tend to go a bit overboard and research until I can absolutely not do it anymore. There is nothing wrong with that, except it is time consuming. It is better to have more supportive information on my topic than too little though; therefore, I see that as a strength. Some places that I have improved within my public speaking is looking at the audience. Especially when presenting with a powerpoint, it is so extremely easy to just use that slide show as your eye contact comfort. Previously, I would literally write my entire speech on the powerpoint and read it word for word without making a single eye contact with the audience I was speaking too. This will always be an area that I feel like I will need to work on, but this course definitely helped me to improve. Another way that I improved was through the outlines and note cards and other preparation we had to do for our speeches in this class. I used to never practice in front of a live audience before speech day, never prepare a written outline of what I was going to speak out, or bring note cards up with me; like I said before I would simply use the powerpoint fully. Through this course I have improved upon my organization of developing a decent speech and I feel like I really gained a strength in this area as well. I learned how to prepare myself in order to deliever a decent speech. One area that I really need to focus on is the eye contact. I really try hard to make myself confident enough so that I look at the audience frequently while I am speaking, but a repeating comment on noticed on my speech critiques was that I did not make much eye contact until the end of my speech. This is due to my nervousness. After I speak for a few minutes I get more comfortable and that is when I really make direct eye contact with my audience, but I need to work on doing that from the very get go. Overall, I am so pleased with my decision in taking this course. I really learned so much about public speaking in the last five weeks than I ever thought I could learn! I will hold onto the strengths that I gained and keep working on the improvements that need to be made in order to become a successful public speaker!
As I had mentioned on the first day of class, this was my second crack at public speaking. A few years ago when I had first taken it I was much more nervous than this time around. However, it is only normal to have some sort of apprehension about the class. I think for me it was a feeling of being exposed when I was in front of everyone. I have no problem being a conversation starter in normal daily situations, but when all eyes are on me and they all expect something it makes it more difficult. I did learn that this uneasiness is waned when time is given to proper preparation. As much as I hated the outlines, they helped tremendously as I have learned that good speeches are organized and easily understood. I felt my biggest improvements were my eye contact, and organization. My biggest weakness is my usage of filler words (umm!). I think part of it is because I could have prepared more, but the other part is that I feel I may still be overly anxious. This is a habit I will focus on improving by simply allowing for a brief silence between points. I found that memorable presentations come from hard work, research, organization, preparation, an understanding of your message, and how it will be perceived by your particular audience. On the other hand, listening I feel is something that I need a little less work on. I am usually attentive in my classes and I feel the easiest way to do this is by forcing an interest in a subject and eating or having a coffee before class to keep your energy level up. I do listen for facts a bit too much though because it is fun to parrot them when in a conversation with someone on the subject as it makes me appear credible. This class has taught me much more than I expected and I will continue to improve myself, so that in the future I am more in control of the messages I am trying to convey.
Post a Comment