Mark Komar

The thing that was most different in performing these two oral presentations would be the emotions involved. For the monologue, you had to try and guess what the emotions of the character were. With the personal speech, it was easier to portray because we understood where it was coming from. The personal speech also allowed for us to share with the class something we’ve dealt with that’s changed us. It also gave insight to who we really are based on that experience. Listening to my speech again I asked myself: “Is that how I really sound?” I noticed I had good eye contact with the audience, but I swayed from side to side. It’s something I do when I’m nervous, although I shouldn’t be. I’ve talked to almost all of the class and I would say, for the most part, I’m comfortable. However, it was the idea of being put on the spot that made me nervous. I should have practiced more because I looked at the cards more than I thought I would have to. Also, at certain parts I was stuck on words and it took a while to recover from the pause. I felt like I could have done more with my gestures and I didn’t need to stand in one spot. I could have paced, but no excessively. Overall I was dissatisfied with my own speech, but the class had some great speeches. They had great introductions, which quickly got my attention on what they had to say. I also wanted to listen more because of how personal some were. Although the emotions I felt were nowhere close to what they experienced, it gave me a good idea of what the experience was like. I liked the jokes that some speeches had. I felt that was a good way to keep the audience interested. Some things that didn’t work were that some speeches were too slow with too many pauses, and others were too quick to keep up with. Also too many vocal fillers broke down the central idea of what the speaker was trying to say. The picture included represents me being put on the spot in front of everyone.