Part of an individual’s academic formation has to do with developing good public speaking skills because it’s the way he will be judged in social interaction; and a wide variety of possibilities will open up from here. Acquiring and developing the techniques to speak in public requires a lot of training along the way, and if we keep our objective in mind, it will be easier to win the audience, to sell our idea or to get the job. In this course, Language Through Speech, I have had the chance to learn that public speaking is not just about talking and delivering a message, inform, entertain or influence an audience big or small, but that I need to be aware about my purpose and all the tools and accessories that will take me there. The tips, tools and techniques provided by the different experts in the area through videos and lectures have helped me to better up my knowledge and be able to share the wealth as a change agent by spreading this knowledge in the classroom keeping in mind that the students become skilled in nonverbal communication. Professional speakers as well as social scientists agree that the most powerful instrument for convincing an audience is our body,but we needknowledge and training to understand those nonverbal cues our body sends, and use them effectively to our advantage. According to statistics in the United States, speaking in public is the number one fear of most Americans, and I dare to say that the same ranking could be shared in Mexico and other countries, reason for which I consider that gestures, speaking posture and vocal variety are the key elements to be a skilled nonverbal communicator. We understand that body language is broad, but we can cover all ends initially by using the appropriate gestures. Gesticulation is a key ingredient because it brings energy to our presentation and helps to illustrate what we are trying to say. By cognitive process we remember more of what we see because most of comprehension and retention are visual. So let’s take advantage of that and tailor our gestures to our audience and throw in a multiple combination: small gestures involves using only our fingers, medium gestures pivot at our wrists, large gestures hinge at our elbows and the large gestures originate from our shoulders and move outward, upward or downward, this is according to Deborah Greyson Riegel in Body Language, nonverbal communication. Our fingers, hands and arms are an excellent source for creating visual aides. Also through our gestures we control when we stand still and when we move to keep the audience busy and connected with us. It’s crucial that we coordinate our verbal and our gesticulations and remember to align our eye contact, our hand and our leading foot all together. If we are ready and we clam, our body will respond accordingly. Then, our posture will add on to our self-confidence by projecting that we are assertive and that we feel confident and comfortable, and that’s a message we want the audience to perceive in us. Presence is visible after adopting an upright posture because it will makes us look solid and taller, and it will display that we are passionate, enthusiastic, authentic and confident among other adjectives appealing a charming person and in control of the situation. Amy Cuddy says that our nonverbal govern how we think and feel about ourselves and that the body can shape the mind, so if we use the power of dominance through our pose, we become a person of power. It’s important to make sure all eyes are in front of us before we begin, and just like the drive test let’ make all the necessary adjustments to begin; the same thing before an audience, and these are the recommendations: Stand up with your feet hip-distance apart, keep your chin parallel to the floor which will lengthen your spine and make you look taller and stand still when you are at the front of the room. If you carefully follow these steps, you will manage to project through your posture so the audience’s eyes will be on you, and off you go. There is one more item to close the loop which will create a warm and welcoming atmosphere, and that will be vocal variety. The measured use of the right tone, pitch, pace, and pronunciation can help us to create rapport with our audience; once we get feedback, we can continue working with our projection by modulating our voice and getting our audience more involved. It is important to know our audience and use the resource of the pause to emphasize to certain information, orwe can also get quiet when we want the listeners to take notice of an important point. Debora Greyson says that slow and steady wins the race. These audience management skills will create an allusion of self-confidence, and our goal is for the audience to mirror this attitude. Gurrola. Summer 2014. Introduction to SPeech.

ESSAY: Introduction to Speech.Summer 2014. Lizeth. Humans are born with the ability to produce language, but only some of them posses the capacity to use the language effectively. We do not born with the domain of powerful speaking; people have to develop speaking skills to covey meaning successfully by the adequate use of vocabulary. It is very important for humans to communicate, to socialize and get information from one another. In formal presentations, these skills are the key as well as the content, to get the audience involved in the topic by using powerful words that lead to persuasion. This power of speaking is called speech. There are many types of speeches; but we are going to focus just in two: public and rhetoric. Each type of speech fits different life situations, for example, personal events such as birthday parties, graduations, weddings, etc. and others have to do with professional life, such as business presentations. But, what is the difference between the two of them? As it was mentioned before, the purpose of any speech is to influence human choices on specific topics by describing certain situations, supporting ideas and giving examples by using the language properly. Rhetoric is a type of speech where the speaker organizes content and ideas in a formal way to persuade the audience (It can be either written or orally). Public speaking is visualized as a more common speech and mostly use in everyday situations, this is also a formal presentation but without focusing on persuading, only in giving one’s opinion and presenting information. When designing a speech it is crucial to take into consideration the following steps: invention; to come up with ideas about the chosen theme, arrangement; to organize the main points of the information, it must be clear and consistent, editing; reread the speech many times as necessary to improve it. Once the speech is done, the speaker must practice the content very well to feel confident when presenting; memory, and finally, he/she must think about how to deliver the information, what words and intonation will be used to convey the meaning proposed and to fit that particular audience properly, so they find it interesting; style and delivery.

Introduction to Speech Student Summer 2014: Fátima Rhetoric and Public Speaking Plato held that rhetoric is “the art of winning the soul by discourse.” However, this turns out to be a very difficult task when we find ourselves in a situation where we have to deliver a message to an audience. Being a talented speaker has so much to do with practice and improving the aspects we think do not work fine in order to achieve our objectives. Convincing an audience by using logic is a very useful tool because we make them feel we are on the same path and that our message is not an “out of space” thing. When we use an intelligible vocabulary we are easily on the other side and we earn our audience’s interest. Being a public speaker is not easy, especially when you do it for the first time. However, mastering the results is up to what our expectations from the audience are. The speaker has to be aware of the objectives of his/her audience and find out at least three ways of reaching it. Also, as a speaker, we have to be conscious about our audience, because we cannot prepare a speech for teenage students and try to use the same words for adults, since the experiences and expectations from each group are totally different. Nevertheless, I have learned how to manage situations and I have learned that it is very important to listen as well. In an interactive situation it is very important to listen to our message receivers so we realize whether we are getting to the point of our speech or not. The art of public speaking is a very interesting one, especially for me since I am a teacher. Having the opportunity to create classroom environments more conducive to learning has so much to do with how a teacher communicates and addresses to the students. First of all, mastering our contents is important; however, mastering the skill of doing it is what leads us to succeed inside the classroom, and as Plato stated, we definitely win our student’s souls, and miraculously, they produce an interest in our message.

Productos del curso de Introduction to Speech impartido de Julio a Agosto 2014. Public Speaking. The act of speaking before an audience for a specific purpose is called pubic speaking, and it involves a series of elements in the content and the structure that will make it a weapon to success aside from being ludic for many. The intention behind engaging in public speaking is to inform, influence and or entertain a group of people of a certain profile of characteristics; that group of people can vary in age, gender, ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, and any other category that could apply. When we engage in public speaking to inform, we need to make sure to anticipate the answers to the who, what and when questions as well as to evidence what medium was utilized to achieve that, and what effects are or were expected of that action. It is important to know the order of our message to feel more comfortable and to avoid mistakes and confusion. An audience expects the best from the individual delivering the message; therefore that person is accountable to become an authority in the subject by mastering the topic and the presentation. There is another excuse for public speaking and it happens when we want to influence our audience. At this point is valid to say that the concept of the word influence could have several meanings or synonyms that could lead to misinterpretation according to how they are applied; some of those synonyms are persuade, convince, induce, cause, inspire, motivate, and so on and so forth; each of these meanings hold a intention, a message and an action which can be seen with motivational speakers, community leaders and opinion leaders like Tony Robbins, Louis Farrakhan or Bill Gates, to name a few. We could also make use of public speaking to entertain, tell a story or amuse a large audience or to fit in in a small group of people. In any event we need to make sure that we need our topic and that the audience has some interest is hearing what we have to say. We can see this in story telling for kids in the library, or in a social gathering with old or new friendswhere we get a chance to talk about our adventures. The best example is with stand-up comedy where comedians or performers need to know their act and make you laugh your soul out. As we can see, the appropriate use of the language will allow us to communicate in all circumstances, but public speaking was designed to impress others and it requires acquiring certain skills that Jay, from Toastmasters, shows in the video “Time-tested Tips”. In that video, Jay gives easy to understand advice and procedure to become a better public speaker, and tells that we need to know our subject and our speech as well as to know our audience and the location. In other words, knowing what we are talking about, the background or profile of our audience and the physical location are the blueprints of our speech when we want to inform, influence or entertain our audience. Angel Gurrola.