Goals:
1.) One goal that I wish to achieve in this class is being able to speak confidentially in front of any number of people. I am not the worst public speaker, but I am never really confident that what I am saying is important or if it is any good. I want to learn how to be comfortable in front of a large group of people, or if I'm nervous (which it is normal to be), I want to learn techniques to present a calm front and be able to communicate my ideas or beliefs eloquently and confidently.
2.) Another goal I have for this class is to control my body language while speaking in order not to distract my listeners. When I get nervous I tend to blush, play with my hands, rock back and forth or not make eye contact. I wish to be able to control these habits so that the people listening will only be paying attention to the message I am presenting, rather than being distracted but my mannerisms instead.
3.) My final goal in this class is to be able to memorize a speech and deliver the message as if I am taking on the character I need to be to get the meaning across. I have always just read my speeches word for word, rarely making eye contact, and it seems robotic and not fluid. I wish to be able to know what I want to say and have a general idea of what the speech will include, but to also take on my message personally, getting into the speech even if I need to improvise every once in awhile.
Now looking over time I see that I achieved my first goal, to give a confident speech. I have given many speeches over the course of the year and each one I have been less nervous and more secure in front of many people. The speeches that stick out to me the most are the one I gave in front of the whole school and the last speech I gave for my Ted Talk. For both of them I was passionate about my topic and wasn't nervous to talk about it. I was able to get through with a clear strong voice and people loved both speeches. I saw a huge improvement in myself in both of them. Another goal I accomplished was my body language. I learned from this course to use body language only when it is effective so as not to look nervous. In my final speech for the class, watching myself, I only used my hands a couple times for emphasis but otherwise I looked calm and confident. My last goal was to be able to memorize of take on a character to give a good message in a speech. I even accomplished this both in my monologue and also in my spoken word poetry. Memorization isn't as scary as it was when I first started the class, and looking forward to giving my senior speech, I am confident I will combine all my accomplished goals to be able to really give a great delivery.
One thing that I have gotten better at but always need to be conscious to continue working on is my volume and speed of my speech. In the beginning of the class, I was very quiet and barely audible. Not make matters worse, I also read my speeches extremely fast and really lost the audience in places. At the end, I have made a conscious effort to speak more slowly and I am very proud of myself for this. I have also learned to be confident and speak loudly which is also helping me give effective speeches for audiences to enjoy.
The biggest things I will take away from this class is all of the techniques that go into a great speech and also the many different types of public speaking. Going forward, I will always use these techniques because I will always have to speak publically in my life, so now I feel that I can give a great speech with all of the tools I have learned.
