Blog #6

In this marking period the goals I had set myself to do were to: improve my presentation skills, learn to present efficiently without any major difficulties, learn how to memorize speeches and learn different techniques that will improve my public speaking. 

Now that the marking period is nearly over, I am happy to say that I have completed most of these goals in my Public Speaking class. The first two goals were completed quickly when I worked on my senior speech. Practicing in class made the speech come more naturally to me, allowing me to feel more comfortable with it. Another benefit of practicing in front of my classmates was that they would give me constructive criticism on several aspects of my presentation, such as pacing, reducing the movement of my hands or body that made the presentation distracting and helping me make my speech sound more natural and personal. When I presented my speech officially in front of teachers and students, I found myself to be very comfortable with my presentation, taking into consideration what my fellow public speaking partners had told me. I also realized that during the presentation I did not feel nervous at all, which surprised me since I was the first student that had to present that day. This shows how well practicing it with my peers worked. I can now say that I feel extremely confident in my presentation skills, and that this class has certainly helped me achieve this. 

I also worked on my third goal, memorization. The monologue project that we did in class helped out a lot, and by choosing an iconic quote, I felt it was easier to do so. Memorization is something that does not come naturally to me, and I found myself screwing up many times when I practiced. One of the strategies that helped overcome this difficulty was memorizing small portions of the text one by one to make it easier for me. For example, I would memorize the first two or three sentences, repeating them many times before moving on to the next set. Eventually, I was able to memorize the entire speech after practicing for many days. This project helped me a lot, and has certainly improved my memorization.

As for my last goal, I hope that in the next marking period there may be more opportunities to learn techniques to make me better at public speaking. All in all, I feel that this has been a successful marking period, with three out of my four goals completed.