MY BEST ADVICE : Throughout the semester, the best peer review that I offered was to speak with a clear and loud voice. I think almost everyone in the class struggles with this and this skill can make or break your speech. This is especially important when we eventually move into the professional world.
WHY IT’S MY BEST ADVICE : One very important skill of giving a good speech is being able to talk clear and loud. If someone is talking with a firm voice the audience usually believes that the speaker knows what he or she is talking about. This advice was needed for my peers because if some people cannot hear your speech from the back of the class, no one is hearing the message or purpose of your speech.
BEST ADVICE FROM MY PEERS : After the very first speech we gave, the piece of advice that showed up on almost all of my reviews was to make more eye contact with the audience.
WHY IT’S THE BEST ADVICE : After delivering the first speech I realized that I basically had my face shoved into my paper the whole time, which restricted me from connecting with the audience. After getting this advice, I tried to make more and more eye contact with the audience every time I delivered a speech. Ultimately, I think making eye contact with the audience allows them to connect with the speaker and makes the speech more powerful overall.
BIG REFLECTIVE MOMENTS (BRM) :
- The biggest thing that I need to improve for the next speech is making eye contact. I read off of my paper much more than I intended to which was due to nerves. I practiced my speech and thought I had it down pact, but when I got up there I couldn’t remember what I was going to say
- One thing that went well for me was the memorization of my speech. Although I had to reference my outline a couple of times, overall I refrained from using it. Also, making my outline so that it only has a couple of words for every bullet point helped me to not rely on my outline
WHY THESE REFLECTIVE MOMENTS MATTER :
- The first reflection that I picked was after I delivered speech one. As I touched on before, I realized that eye contact was one of the biggest things that I needed to focus on before delivering speech two. Also, in my reflection I mentioned that I had practiced my speech many times before but blanked when I got in front of the whole class. Before delivering this speech I didn’t realize how nervous I would actually be. This helped me better prepare for future speeches, and made me realize that I need to practice more but I also need to practice in different environments, not just by myself in my room.
- The second reflection that I picked was after I delivered speech three. Speech three was complicated to deliver simply because we were trying to tell a story, and remember small details of a specific time without relying on our outlines. For this speech I found that it was helpful to make an outline that consisted of only keywords forcing myself to memorize the speech. In doing this, it helped me make more eye contact with the audience and overall look more confident delivering the speech.
MY BIGGEST STRIDES : The speech that I saw the biggest growth between the dry run and the actual presentation was speech number 4. For this speech we did in initial dry run which was basically us talking about our outline and what we hope to accomplish my the final draft. Then, we did a second dry run where we implemented our rough draft of our outline. Lastly, we put it all together and made a final draft and between all of these videos the viewers can see the progression that we made throughout the process such as things we added, took away, or changed.
