Public Speaking

After watching my first speech and then watching my last speech I realized I have learned alot about public speaking this year and I have really improved. On my first speech I was quiet and I said 'like' many times throughout my presentation. In my persuasive speech, which was my last speech, I talked loudly and clearly. I also did not say 'like' that many times in this speech. Instead of 'like' though I said um so i still need to watch my fillers. I think that in the future if I slpw down and think more as I am presenting I can limit the amount of fillers I used. I also think that the persuasive speech was the hardest speech we did this year and the informative was the easiest so im proud of myself for still improving with the harder speech. The last thing I want to work on is my eye contact. Although from the first speech to now I have improved, my eye contact is limited because I tend to look at my power point too much. Next time I will use less information on my power point so that I don't have to read it. Even though I know the information, the nerves always get to me so its easier to just read it so I also need to calm down. Overall, I think I really improved on my public speaking this year and I am more confident in my abilities to make speeches now.

Demonstrative Speech

I did my demonstrative speech on how to do a pirouette. Some things I did well on were my organization. From the last speech I think I was better prepared and I had a more interesting hook. My transitions for the steps were smooth and easy to understand. I think the strongest part of my speech was how I 'dumbed down' the technical terms for people who don't know about dance to be able to understand the steps. This part was the hardest part because I wanted to make sure everyone understood my steps, so I am glad that I was successful in that.

Some things I think I should improve on still were how many times I said 'like'. On my last speech I said that a lot as well and even though I tried to focus on fixing that, when I get up there and am nervous it is a habit. I think to break that habit I should practice my speech more at home and not let there be any pauses because thats when the 'likes' slip in. I also thought I needed to slow down my talking this time. I thought that having a friend up there with me would make the speech easier but now I don't think that is true so in the future I wont be using live help. The main thing I want to improve is how I kept saying 'like' so I am planning to fix that in my next speech.