When public speaking, I feel being able to connect with your audience is the most significant. Connecting with your audience encourages them to be engage during your speech. People will not see the speech as something they are forced to endure. They will see it as something informative yet relatable in a sense, which enables them to keep listening to what you have to say. If you do not grasp the audiences attention or seem to spark their interest then they might possibly stop paying attention and just take little pieces of information in.
I believe that I still have a lot to improve on compared to myself from the beginning of the semester. With the semester interrupted because of COVID, there was plenty I wished to become better at doing. Watching the videos related to our online assignments was beneficial in demonstrating numerous ways to deliver a speech efficiently. However, if we were face to face in class I feel I could have progressed significantly. I can say that after our first speech, I felt more confident in myself. I was able to find my ‘voice’ and have people finally hear what I have to say. Other than that, I was not proud of my stillness and lack of engagement. This class has helped me to understand the value of being a good public speaker. With the knowledge that I have gained, I intend to continue to improve and build on what I already know, and enhance what I tend to struggle with.
As a speaker, one of my strengths is my ability to project my voice loudly and clearly enough for the whole audience to hear. I make sure my vocal delivery is consistent enough so that even the people at the back of the room can hear me. If I speak too soft then I start worrying whether people may stop paying attention and completely zone out. By speaking to where my voice is heard clearly allows the audience to follow along with the content I am delivering and hopefully later recall information I have mentioned. Another strength I have is being able to choose the best sources and facts to ensure that the audience is well informed about the topic I have selected. When I put my speech together, I always see it like I am teaching someone else the information so I can make sure I incorporate the main points.
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One weakness that I have as a speaker is being able to maintain eye contact with the entire audience. Eye contact is one of the most essential skills needed to establish a connection and be engaging with the audience. With it being important in public speaking, I have been trying to improve this skill. I mostly made minor glances at the audience from time to time during the first speech we did. Since our second speech was online, I could not practice this skill. However, I will keep working hard at making eye contact in the future so I can interact with the audience more directly. Another problem I have is I do not think I’ll have enough time to squeeze all the material I’ve gathered into the assigned time frame. I always think I’m going to go a minute over even after I practice 20 times and have a minute left. Because of this, I sometimes catch myself speaking more rapidly and trip over my words and their pronunciation as I try to present as much as possible.
I intend to continue strengthening my eye-contact skills by making sure that when I am presenting my eyes are not glued to my outline or the ground. To achieve this goal, I would like to start slowly by maintain decent eye contact in normal day-to-day conversations. As a whole, keeping eye contact is something that I struggle with so this will help improve my social and public speaking skills. With time, I should begin to feel comfortable interacting with small audiences and view them as friendly conversations. Another goal that I have is to feel more natural and realize that I do not have to stand still and keep my hands on the podium. I want to use hand gestures more to emphasize what I am saying and add volume to my expression.
