blog 8

During this week and last week, we have been working on our speeches. We had to write and deliver a speech and the topic was “What I believe”. We basically had to talk about something that we believed strongly about. I talked and wrote about how parents are taken for granted. I talked and used my personal life experience to sort of enhance the speech like how I moved from Africa to America and how I don’t get to see my parents at all that much. The speech was pretty easy for me to put together because I could include my personal experience and story to better the speech. I thought that my presentation was not too bad. Most of the students in the class said that I sounded depressed and sad when I presenting and that I need to work on that. I wanted it to be a little bit sad so that the audience could feel my story and understand why I feel the way I feel about my topic. I thought Alexis did a terrific job at presenting her speech. She was very articulate and had lots of facts included in her speech. One of the problems with it though, is that it was pretty long. Most people’s attention might be lost by then. She needs to shorten her speech and it will be perfect. Omarion’s speech was good as well. He talked about how he felt that guns could relieve stress if used the right way and he showed his passion for shooting guns. His topic is a very touchy subject because a lot of people are not very fond of guns and the use of guns in a minor’s hands. But I think overall it was great. One thing I learned from listening to Alexis’s speech is that you have to slow down when you’re presenting and be very articulate. The projector helped a lot because it forced you to slow down and pace yourself. Taking pauses when you’re presenting a speech is a very good public speaking skill. For me personally, it was a challenge reading the speech off my blog. I am a better public speaker when I just start talking on the spot and don’t read it off anything. That is one of my big strengths. One of my big weakness is volume and articulation. Sometimes my audience won’t be able to hear me that well or some words I say when I deliver my speech isn’t so clear to them when I present it. Those are the two main things that I need to work on. This was a pretty difficult activity. But it helped me identify and focus on what I need to work on my public speaking