Reflecting on the past experience, I have both strength and weakness in the public speaking. First, the strength of my speaking is organization. I can able to explain my points in a very organized way for the audience to understand. Bad organization can make the audience confused through listening to the speaker, but good organization creates a flow within the speaking which helps the listener to take track. The other strength I have is voice, I have a strong and clear voice to make a speech very clear. Loud and clear voice is a very good advantage to appeal the audience. People have difficulties when they cannot listen things carefully, cannot focus on what the listener says. Speakers must able to send their message clearly so listeners can follow. Loud and clear voice in English, make audience to focus on my speak for the entire presentation.
However, people do not only have only strength but also weakness. I have a weakness in the fluency on the speech. I usually make hmm or a... during the speeches which distracts the audience. While making a speech, these pauses are seen as “bad” breaking the mood and fluency in the speech. I want to fix these problems, by having stronger confidence and memorization on my speech. People hesitate and make pauses because they lose the pace on speaking their lines. To avoid this, I have to practice until these pauses cannot be made. The other weakness is eye contact. Eye contact is a way to make connection with the audience. Bad eye contact is seen as “lack” of speech, reading the script that makes the audience displeasing. However, these problem can be fix by severe memorization and practice. Similar to fluency, I have to practice on focus on the audience not on individual paper. When these problems are fixed, professional speeches can be made with good influence on the audience and increase self-confidence on the stage.
I feel like the pauses in your speech is actually a strong trait to have because instead of running on, becoming repetitive, or saying something you might regret, you actually take a quick second to gather your thoughts so that whatever you say come across as intelligent. Also, to not focus in the paper but with the audience instead is a challenge. That actually takes practice; it is not an overnight thing. So, my recommendation is to practice in front of a group of friends and learn how to incorporate body movement and eye contact.
ReplyDeleteI totally empathize with the eye contact problem. As I mentioned in my RCL blog, I used to stare at the back row of a crowd if I was presenting to a large audience. It helped but it was a crutch allowing me to avoid looking at the middle and front rows (your eye contact should be fluid and all encompassing). I am slowly getting better at it. Maybe use that trick until you get better?
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