amyv’s blog

This speech was my worst speech, which was opposite of what I was expecting.  I thought it would be my best speech, incorporating everything that I’ve learned from the other three speeches that I’ve given this semester.  I got nervous when I was speaking and completely blanked when I was talking.  I tried to just keep going, but I know I started looking at my note cards and saying “um” a lot.  I thought that I had the best main points in this speech out of all of my speeches, and thought I would be able to talk a lot about them since I was speaking from experience and had good supporting points in my outline.  I think I might have recited my speech a little too much, and so was expecting to say things, and then when I forgot what they were, I blanked and couldn’t remember what I wanted to say next.  If I could do this speech over again I would, because I know that I could have done a much better job with it.

Things that I would improve on if I were doing another speech would be not saying “um” and looking at my notecards so much.  Also, I would try to make better eye contact.  Since I was looking at my notecards, I wasn’t making great eye contact with the audience.  I would also try to be less nervous next time and have more fun with it, since I chose a topic that would be fun for me and would have been fun for the class if I had presented it better.

One thing that was easier with this speech was making the outline.  I thought I did a much better job on it, and I thought it was easier to make since I knew how to do it and had examples (my other outlines) to look at.

I think some of my strengths for this speech are that I was prepared and I presented confidently.  My first couple of speeches I was very nervous.  While I was nervous for this speech as well, I think my nerves turned into confidence as I was speaking.  My part of the speech went smoothly and pretty much without error.

My team did an amazing job of presenting this speech.  We all dressed up as BG tour guides, and everyone had fun with their section.  My teammates definitely helped me do a better job of presenting.  They did great with their parts, which helped me be more confident about mine.  We all have different personalities, so that contributed to our speech, and added to the humor of it.

The area I still need to work on is using word fillers, especially “ums.”  I think I have improved on eye contact and volume of my voice.

The overall experience was very good.  I think that I still had all the nerves of the previous speeches, but I think I’m getting better at channeling the nerves into energy for the speech.