1). What makes you apprehensive about public speaking?
Public Speaking has not always been difficult for me. Throughout the years I did begin to develop public speaking anxiety and have become apprehensive about this task. In a sense public speaking should not be more difficult to me as it has become. A variety of things make me apprehensive about public speaking. The fear of embarrassing yourself in front of an audience may be a fear for many, but as the book explains not engaging your audience in your speech is a personal fear of mine. I believe that one cannot give a successful speech if they cannot engage their audience because that is who the speech is directed for.
Cicero and his five arts explain thoroughly how to excel at public speaking, but also completely relate to ways to engage a listening audience. The Five Arts are Invention, Arrangement, Style, Memory, and Delivery. Invention and arrangement allows speakers to come up with an idea for their speech and bring together ideas in an organized fashion that will help engage an audience. Style is explained as, "the language you use to bring a speech's content to life," (Coopman 8). Style is important because it can dramatically change the content of the speech. Vivid wording can bring life into a speech. Finally Cicero's last two of the five arts are memory and delivery, which can end up being the most difficult part of the speech. Memorizing a speech and delivering it has to be one of the things I begin to feel most nervous about. I always feel the need to know the content of my speech, but Cicero's use of memory goes even beyond that saying, "You rely on everything you have learned about public speaking, your topic, the audience, and the occasion, (Coopman 8). The delivery of a speech makes me apprehensive because I have a fear of not making enough eye contact with my audience and sounding monotonous.
Many people are apprehensive about speaking in public for a variety of reasons, my anxiety comes from the way I present in front of an audience. The book sums it up as practice makes perfect, when discussing that speech anxiety can be lowered by habituation, fearing a situation less as it becomes more familiar.
I am sure that this class will be a great opportunity for your habituation and becoming more comfortable speaking in public, especially formally. Hopefully knowing that everyone in the audience is rooting for you to do well and knows exactly what you are going through will help to give you confidence and make you comfortable establishing good eye contact. Our first speech is about our own culture, so the fact that it is something that is important to you and that you are interested in should make it easier for you to feel engaged and not have to worry about sounding monotonous. I'm sure you will do great and I am looking forward to hearing yours, as well as everyone elses speech.
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