Public Speaking
After this
week I felt it was kind of necessary to talk about public speaking. We all did
it this week and we are all glad to be done with it. As I gave my speech I
realized that being a rhetor is not as easy as it looks. It takes a great deal
of courage to speak to a crowd and get them to understand your beliefs or at
the very least be interested in what you have to say.
When I gave my speech I was beyond nervous and it was hard
for the words to come out. This is weird since I am a very outgoing girl who
loves talking. On Monday I could barely talk and it felt as though I would
faint and I had to stop every so on to breathe. After class people commented me
on the fact that I did not use notecards, but that did not make me feel good
since my problem was not with the memorization of facts because that is
something that I am good at. My problem is being able to stand in front of a
crowd and speak without feeling afraid or nervous. I felt as though I will
never be a good speaker I would always just be a nervous wreck.
Things got worse for my on Tuesday when I had to give a 30
minute presentation on a short story for my Honors Asian Literature class. The
presentation went great I had a lot of information to present and since I was
sitting in the front of the class I was not nervous. The problem arose when it
seemed like no one was interested in what I had to say. When I looked around
the room people were either doing work for some other class or on their phones.
This annoyed me because I worked hard to have a good presentation and no one
cared.
Public speaking is a very hard thing to do and it is even
harder when no one else listens.
You're right... public speaking is SUPER hard. Being a rhetor is especially tricky because before you can even think about persuading people, you first have to conquer just getting up and talking in front of them. What I find helpful is to think of my audience not as an "audience," but more as just friends that I'm chatting with since I'm a talkative person like you. I keep it conversational and natural, like I'm just telling them cool stuff instead of "giving a speech." I also like to consider the info I'm presenting from my audience's point of view to make sure I'm not saying things that will totally bore them. Hope this helps!
ReplyDeleteGirl I can say your not the only one that realized the difficulties of speaking in public. All of our speaches wont be great, that is how we learn and get better. We all have improvements to make. So dont give up believeing that you will get better!
ReplyDeleteI don't get nervous, but I forget what I've already said and repeat things... despite rehearsing, my speech reached 6 minutes and 34 seconds and I didn't really notice it. O_o
ReplyDeleteI think the best thing anyone can do is practice it and when it comes time for the speech, be very confident. Like, don't care about whether or not people will or won't like your speech, or what they're doing, just put on a show that you can be proud of.
Sometimes people (I know I do this) focus attention elsewhere, but still listen in and look at the speaker every now and then because we all know it feels awkward (and can be considered rude)to stare at others for long amounts of time. Speeches are no different (or at least I think so), maybe that was what was going on with the audience?
What was your topic? I'm in the earlier class, so I wasn't there for your presentation.