MY BEST ADVICE:

Looking back at all the feedback I have given throughout the course of this semester in this Public Speaking class, the best advice I have given was about presence. I gave someone feedback about their stance when presenting and how they could fix it. They were very stiff and didn’t use much body language and seemed closed off, so I told them to open up more when presenting.

WHY IT’S MY BEST ADVICE:

This has been my best advice this semester because I feel that it is something that many people overlook and don’t comment about. It is also my best advice because I have seen that person use this advice in future speeches after giving them the advice. They presented better in their next speech and used more body language and didn’t seem as closed off to the audience. Maybe they didn’t notice it themselves, so giving them this piece of advice helped them become a better public speaker.

BEST ADVICE FROM MY PEERS:

The best advice that I have gotten from my peers is that I talk too quietly. I have gotten this piece of advice from probably everyone in the class as I do tend to speak quietly and I don’t even realize it. Personally, I think that I am speaking at a good volume, but I got a lot of feedback saying that it was too quiet and I need to speak up.

WHY IT’S THEIR BEST ADVICE:

This is their best advice because it has made me rethink about my public speaking and how to improve. I’m sure they knew that many others would write “speak louder”, but they continued to do so anyway. This helped me a lot because it got it tattooed in my brain that I needed to practice on my volume and I need to speak louder when presenting. In speech 3, I started to see some positive feedback about my volume and that I was improving, so it gained my confidence and made me want to keep good volume. Having this repetitive feedback motivated me to speak louder in my future presentations and I hope to speak at a good volume for my last speech.

BIG REFLECTION MOMENTS:

One big reflection moment for me over the course of this class was through reflecting on speech 3. This was the What You Mean to Me speech that I did about my soccer coach. My reflection was about how I was more comfortable giving this speech and it made me reflect on my relationship with this person.

Another big reflection moment for me over this class was after my first speech. I was given multiple pieces of feedback that I was talking too quiet and needed to speak up. I got this type of feedback from basically everyone in the class. This came as a shock to me because I know I’m quiet by nature, but not so quiet that a whole class commented on it.

WHY THESE REFLECTION MOMENTS MATTER:

As I reflected on speech 3, I came to realization with my first BRM. Reflecting on my level of comfort with this speech and reflecting on this person in my life, it made me realize just how important this person is to me and how much of an impact they’ve had on my life. This reflection moment really matter for not just in class, but for outside of class where I can take my relationships with someone and reflect upon them to see just how much they mean to me.

As I reflected on my first speech, I came to the realization that I really needed to work on my volume and speak louder when presenting. This was a BRM for me because in high school, everyone knew I was quiet, but no one really commented on it, so I assumed I was fine and I could keep talking at that level. Seeing all this feedback and reflecting on it was a huge moment for me because it made me motivated to improve this about myself in both future speeches and in life after this class.

MY BIGGEST STRIDES:

From dry-run to finish, the biggest stride that I saw was from speech 2 to speech 3. I was a lot more comfortable with both the material and my classmates so it was a lot easier to present in front of them and give a speech. Also, for my dry-run for speech 2, I looked at my outline a lot and was contorted with my body language. However, looking at my dry-run for speech 3, I was a lot more open when I presented and barely looked down at my outline during it. I also could barely hear myself in my dry-run for speech 2 and had to have my all the way volume up to listen and reflect on it. However, you could hear me a lot clearer in speech 3 in both my dry-run and the real thing. This was a large stride in my public speaking because it is something that I have always struggled with and I improved on it from speech to speech.