Public Speaking

Wednesday (8th Dec 2010)

I learnt about Public Speaking conducted by En Hisyam Ab. Karim and Miss Shadwan Hanani (Nani). It's quite an interesting class and fun too.

Public Speaking is important as it enhances our communication skills and improves our ability to speak confidently with new people. Moreover, it can make us use language properly, knows the correct intonation and can discuss about almost everything (general issues, politics, history, sports etc).

Elements of public speaking includes:

• volume
• rate
• emphasis
• articulation
• organization
• word choice

These elements are the key to be a good public speaker. Knowing when to raise volume at which rate, which words need to be emphasized, pronouncing the words correctly and organizing sentences using the suitable word choice are very crucial to attract the audience attention. Learning the correct gestures while speaking to the audience is also important because sometimes a person does not realize that he/she overdo it or has the wrong gestures, or even more, has no gestures at all, standing like a still tree. We also need the correct emotions and expressions when speaking in public.

In addition to the elements above, we need to know our audience. If we were to talk in public with all sorts of people, we cannot use jargon that they don't understand. We need to know how to simplify our words because in the end public speaking is about conveying message. We need to know that our audience gets what we're trying to tell.

To get a better understanding on how these elements work, practice is the ultimate recipe. A person can learn and memorize all the elements but without practice it will go nowhere.

As for this session, En.Hisyam and Miss Nani asked us to draw about the first thing that came into our mind. Ten of us were called to the front to talk about what we drew. I was thinking about going to the ladies room, so i drew,

*The actual drawing is too hideous to be posted here*

I didn't know that we need to go in front to talk about what we drew. It was impromptu and I didn't know what to talk about. Others were drawing cat, mic, scenery, money (notes) so they knew what to talk. But as I looking at my picture, somehow it looked like the ginger bread man, (in this case it was ginger bread lady) so I talked about how I love to bake and it's a tradition for me to bake cookies and cake for Hari Raya and how I waited every year to make scrumptious choc chips, pineapple tart and my very own 'kueh putri salju' which is my friends' favorite. I was supposed to talk for about 5 minutes but En. Hisyam was very understanding that the nature has called so he allowed me to go to the ladies. *shy*

Then, each group were given a task whereby we need to come up with ideas on how to sell a product. My group (Bioself) got a teddy bear. We promoted it by giving description to the teddy bear by each letter of the word T E D D Y B E A R. I got the letter 'E', which stands for Entertainer. I promoted the bear by saying that he's such an entertainer that he can sing, dance and make a person happy by lighten up the surrounding.