After both watching my persuasive speech video and previous videos, I’ve noticed that I’ve definitely changed in regards to both my physical and vocal delivery. I used to have terrible stage fright and would stutter while looking down at the ground whenever I had to present in front of the class, but this course has definitely helped me to get more comfortable with public speaking. Compared to how I presented before, I notice that I use less vocal fillers, make better eye contact, and seem a bit more confident. I think I did well in getting the audience’s attention during my speech through the visual aid, and by persuading them through examples and scenarios. After watching my classmate’s persuasive speeches, I think that the way you present yourself makes for a successful persuasive speech. If you look confident and assert your credibility while maintaining good posture, eye contact, and speak at an expressive and loud volume, you are definitely more likely to persuade your audience. When I go into business in the future, I will definitely use what I learn when presenting in business meetings. The most important skills I’ve taken from this class is speaking extemporaneously and speaking with more confidence. This course has definitely helped me a lot.

Frannie Torres

I feel that my group did well in organizing and delivering a unified presentation. We were able to present our individual parts of the presentation, yet connect our ideas together as one whole presentation. In order to improve the cohesiveness of our presentation, we should have worked on transitioning between our different parts. We should have also focused on spending more time analyzing the paintings we discussed during the speech. We used visual aids in order to emphasize the certain qualities about Magritte’s paintings while we were discussing them. For example, when we said that Magritte usually incorporated the same objects in his paintings, we presented visual examples of these objects. I believed we used the visual effectively at the beginning of our presentation in order to get the attention from our audience.  We could have used it more effectively in analyzing the paintings we were discussing about. Regarding my own physical and vocal delivery, I feel like I was a little less nervous this time. However, I need to focus on slowing down more because I definitely talk too fast while presenting. My goals regarding delivery include being a more confident, louder, and less anxious speaker who doesn’t ramble on too fast. The qualities that kept my attention during my classmates’ presentations would definitely have to be the visuals and their unique choice of topics.

Frannie Torres

The theatrical monologue and the personal speech differed in many ways. First, the theatrical monologue was a bit shorter. The personal speech was also extemporaneous and  felt more natural for me to say, in contrast to the theatrical monologue which had to be said word-for-word. The personal speech also depended on an outline, and allowed for flexibility. Therefore, I found that there was more room for improvisation during the personal speech. This advantage was not as present during the monologue where if you forgot a certain word, your whole flow of speaking would be thrown off.

I personally was not satisfied with my speech, both before and after watching the video. I know that I need to work more on my volume and getting over my obvious stage fright. I now know that I should just start my speech with the “go-getter”, rather than just first introducing the topic of my speech. I also now know that I need to work more on organizing the structure of my speeches.

The qualities of my classmates’ speeches that really got my attention were usually the topics themselves. Finding the topic during the introduction of their speeches as interesting definitely made the rest of the speech more engaging. Humor also got my attention. The emotional aspect of some of the speeches also really got to me, as I tend to be very sensitive on certain issues. The qualities of other speeches that made it hard to stay engaged were usually when a speech being said too fast or too slow. It was hard to stay engaged if the speaker had no emotion in his or her voice, and if his or her tone was monotonous the whole way through.

The image I included shows a laughing audience. They are clearly an audience that is engaged through the use of humor.

Frannie Torres

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIuz6fUtfRE

Nick Vujicic’s story of how he overcame his disability in order to help encourage millions of people all around the world through his motivational speeches is one of the most inspiring stories I have ever heard. Vujicic was born with a rare disability known as tetra-amelia snydrome, a disability that rendered him without arms or legs. His syndrome resulted in depression and attempted suicide during his early childhood, and he truly believed he would never achieve happiness in life. Despite his mental and physical struggles that worsened from being a target of  constant teasing and bullying, Vujicic eventually learned to embrace his lack of limbs. He soon became grateful for his life and decided to use it in order to inspire others to never give up through motivational speaking.

So far, Vujicic has addressed over three million people around the world through his motivational speaking. Therefore, he has comforted millions and has possibly even saved lives. Vujicic has truly impacted these people through his story and unique way of sharing this story. He mixes such elements as humor, tragedy, and compassion in his speeches in an effective way, in order to trigger an emotional response from the audience. Listeners of Vujicic’s motivational speaking can even feel the passion and comfort in his tone and voice during his speeches. Audiences are so moved by his speaking that they all laugh and cry in unison as an appropriate response to Vujicic’s ardent words. Vujicic constantly emphasized this following saying in most of his speeches: “If you can’t get a miracle, become one.” He never let his disability get the better of him, and hopes that  he will help others so that they will also never feel hindered by their own supposed flaws. The image above shows Vujicic under a spotlight, surrounded by thousands of people. It is truly an accurate depiction of Vujicic’s impact on the world.