It's My Turn

Last time in my speech, I asked everyone to go through a small game called "Self-reflection". Now it's my turn to play the game, but only at a smaller scale: my written speech.

I like my speech because it has the "My" factor in it. Personally, I prefer the light-hearted style with a bit of humor and abnormal description. In this speech, all those factors are present. Even though the speech talks about a serious life matter, the tone throughout the speech is not unsmiling and grim at all. In my writing process, I tried to use several funny simile and quotations that came up in my mind to make the theme seem less heavy. Another factor that help to lighten the topic and the speech is the way I approach the question. In order to engage the audience in the series of questions that I have prepared, I turned them into a mini game. In my opinion, such approach could attract and maintain attention from the listeners. Last but not least, I feel confident about my catchy opening.

Of course, my speech is not perfect. My written speech does not sound like a smooth, formal essay or such. It is more of a spoken speech with a lot of interaction with the audience. Thus, when people read the script of it, it is highly likely that they would get confused. Not to mention, the content is relatively long and dense, so people may get bored or lost in the middle of the speech, which could lead to the failure of my speech.


When I had the chance to watch my classmates delivered their speech this week, I learned a lot. First, as I mentioned above, memorization could contribute greatly to the success of a speech. It establishes a control over the flow of the speech and the attention from the audience. I also realize the memorization helps to create a better tone for the speech. When people do not memorize the speech and have to read from the screen, they tend to be monotone throughout the speech. In addition, I found out the effect of media supplement for the speech. For some speech, having media could vastly enhance the delivery as well as the attractiveness of the speech. From what I have seen, I have developed what I need to work on with my speech.

My speech relies heavily on interaction with the audience. Thus, I need to prepare my slides and media components of the speech thoroughly in order to help the audience understand my ideas well. I would also need to practice on pacing. In the "dry" delivery in class, I talked considerably fast . I would have to adjust my pace slower, while maintaining the audience's interest. As my teacher suggested, I should give the listeners a period of time to answer the questions that I pose and to absorb what I say. In addition, I have to work on memorization in order to convey the ideas more clearly and naturally. Without sufficient memorization, my body languages and emotions would be somewhat restraint. Memorization and keeping the audience's attention would be the two biggest challenges in this assignment for me.

I am looking forward to delivering my speech. If you have not had the chance to read my script for the speech, feel free to do so and give some more suggestions. Here is the link: hangmydoan.blogspot.com