What I have learned so far

In the last three weeks, I have learned a lot about the tendencies of bad public speakers compared to good public speakers. It seems like the most important things are being clear, eye contact with the audience, and getting the audience engaged. A lot of the bad ted talks we watched in class were different for several reason. One of the mistakes some of the speakers would make is laughing at their own jokes which made it awkward and the audience wasn’t engaged. The speaker would be smiling the whole time not making eye contact. He/she would then make a joke and would be the only one to laugh which is extremely cringe worthy. Other mistakes were saying “um” too much, looking at the ground, talking too soft, talking too fast or slow, slouching over, not getting the audience engaged, etc. It’s clearly important to develop good habits for public speaking such as having a good stance, standing up straight, a clear voice, humor, etc. For me, the easiest parts are having a clear loud voice, having a good stance, good posture, and eye contact with the audience. Things I can work on are limiting my “um”s and not getting jammed up after talking for a while. After saying a couple sentences or a paragraph, I get caught up because I start to get more nervous. To help me improve, I’ll try to practice more which will make me less nervous because I will be more accustomed to speaking in front of an audience. To limit my “um”s I’ll work on remembering what I’m going to say and focus on what I’m trying to say more. I definitely think that I will improve on this and sharpen my public speaking skills which will help me in many situations including the senior speech.