Last month, we all gave an oral presentation on the person that we admire the most. At first, this was a very difficult task for me because I had never thought of it before and I had no idea who to talk about. Finally, I decided on talking about my grandmother and how her optimism has inspired me to be the best that I can be. Moments before the presentation, I was very nervous and all the confidence I had before that day, soon disappeared. When I stood in front of the class, with my index cards in my hands, I began my speech. I noticed myself looking down a lot and not making any eye contact with the audience. I also noticed I was skipping many parts of my speech because two minutes just wasn’t enough. After I got my speech over with, I felt confident that I did pretty well.
My meeting with Sue was really helpful. She asked me how I thought my speech went, and at that point, I told her everything I knew I did wrong. I told her that I felt I didn’t make any eye contact and I wasn’t speaking loud enough. Sue told me that my speech was good but since I only have two minutes, I should try and fit the most important things in those two minutes. I noticed, after watching the video, that I spoke in a general way and didn’t include many details. This is mostly because I skipped over the detailed parts because I was worried that I was going to go over the two minutes. Next time I make a speech, I will try to fit all the important parts ahead of time and practice my speech a lot in order to stay within the time limit. Overall, this presentation and feedback session was very helpful to me because I learned how to improve myself and become a better presenter.