Importance of Public Speaking

   Public speaking is an important skill that will help throughout your entire lifetime. It is great to be able to learn early in life so that as time passes, it gets easier to speak in front of others. In this public speaking class I have learned many critical things including training yourself to be still, how the right pacing and tone is very significant and how to properly project your voice. 

     It is necessary to stay still or have controlled movements when giving a speech. If you are swaying or moving around, the audience could get distracted and not be listening to what is actually being said. People have things that they do when they are nervous. For example, adjusting feet, twirling hair, bending papers, twisting hands, ect. When talking, these movements can show nervousness and make you seem unprepared or scared. Even if you are nervous, you want to seem proud and confident. Always try to keep movements to a minimum as to not distract others from your speech. 

     Proper pacing, tone and pronunciation is neseccary so that the listeners can clearly understand and hear everything you are saying. You want to speak at a pace that is not too fast and not too slow. If you are speaking too fast, the listeners will not be able to keep up, but if you are too slow, they will become bored or feel insignificant. Tone is important because you do not want to speak to a group of adults the same way you would speak to a group of toddlers. Your tone has to match your speech and the people you are reading it to. You need to pronounce all your words more then you would in a regular conversation. It may seem weird at first, but to the audience, you appear to be speaking completely normally and clearly. 

    Being loud and projecting is always good when delivering a speech, but there is a difference between projection and yelling. You do NOT want to yell at the audience (unless you are purposefully doing it to prove a point or capture their attention) but generally, the audience does not like being yelled at because it can make them feel accused. You will still  have have to talk louder than you would regularly talk, but not loud enough to scare others. 

     I learned that all these points and more can help make the delivery of your speech successful. Standing still and tall will make you seem confident and minimize distraction. Proper pronunciation will help the audience understand clearly everything you are saying. Being able to project will always ensure that everyone can hear you, even in the back of the room. Some things I would like to accomplish this year are: trying to stop moving around as much when I talk in front of others, stop being so nervous in front of people and acting more confident than I actually am. Hopefully all these reasons and more will help me and others become a better public speakers.