Overall the speeches that I have heard so far have been very well thought out and organized. Only a few have lacked in some major aspects of good public speaking.
First I want to go over the aspects of some speeches that could have been improved on. The main thing I noticed in a lot of speeches is that some people do a lot of moving around, I will probably be included as one of those speeches after this Thursday. Although motion is a good way to keep the audiences attention, it can become distracting if it is over done. Another thing I noticed was that some people have had really good ideas but couldn’t quite figure out how to phrase them. They either just abruptly ended the sentence or they kept repeating the same sentence, just varying a little. Those were the two main things that I saw that could be improved on a lot of people’s speeches, these are also aspects that I need to work on while I’m speaking so I mean no disrespect to others that have to improve on them as well.
Now I am going to go over the positives of the majority of the speeches. First everyone spoke at the appropriate volume. Not too loud and more importantly not to soft. Too my surprise there hasn’t been one person who has talked too quickly that I can’t hear them. Second the majority of the speeches reflected on the main topic and reason of the speech, not very many people headed off with no direction as to where they were going. This class is doing a very good job at staying on topic and giving good support with their reasoning. Lastly, basically every has done great on time, which I know is one of the biggest concerns while creating these speeches.
I think my classmates so far have set a high standard for the speeches and I hope I can live up to them with my speech on Thursday.
When I ran through my speech the night before, it took 5 minutes, so I’m glad it went quicker when I presented. Overall, we all have things to work on, and I do agree that if you’re moving too much, you’ll distract the audience from the point of the speech which is your content. I personally always end up moving less than I’d like, because I get nervous and forget about it..,
I think you discussed the things we can improve on very well and not at all in an accusatory fashion, I think you were very thoughtful and overall helpful in your advice there, so if someone gets offended, I honestly think they’re just being too sensitive. 🙂
I agree that the moving around can be somewhat distracting, but it’s important to find a balance between standing as stiff as a board and acting spastic. I think the majority of the class did very well finding this moderation.
I also think the students in this class did a good job being on topic and flowing between topics easily.
I definitely agree about the phrasing part! I have that problem myself where I end up rephrasing the same idea a few times trying to get the best wording. I agree time is a concern; I spoke way too fast and ended up cutting 30 seconds off my speech.