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.

the last post

Everybody is free to wear sunscreen

This video gives you a lot of useful and meaningful advice. It starts trying to tell you that you should appreciate what you have and that as life goes by and you get older you will start to understand the importance of your actions. Because when you are young you have a lot of opportunities and choices to take. Chance is very involved in the choices we have to make and there is not always a correct path to follow. That is why we should be careful with what we choose to worry about. There is no gain or benefit in worrying so much over the decisions we make; so if we can avoid conflicting ourselves with these thoughts our lives are likely to be filled with freedom and happiness instead of anguish.

The speaker in this video wants us to feel more comfortable with ourselves. I realized that what seems so important today might not really be as I think, and that maybe we are being too hard on ourselves. I understood that in a few years the problems I have now might seem irrelevant then. The video also helped me see that we shouldn’t waste so much time on appearances because when we are older that will be gone and we will be left only with memories. That is why we should focus on our relationships, and give the friendships we create now a higher priority.

I learned that in life it is hard to avoid jealousy; but comparing myself or my achievements with other people is one of the worst things I can do because we are all different and we all go through life at our own pace. And that in the end the only competitors in life are ourselves.

Andrea N. 502 Mexicali Baja California. Plantel Baja California

Learning English Through Speech. 5^th. semester.

we have to break the very first limit, we are that first limit...  Ricardo.

                                              The Butterfly Circus

Have you ever asked yourself, “How far I want to go today?” or “What I want to achieve this month?”, and if so, how far have you gone? Or what have you achieved?

This clip is about that, is about how far we want to go and what we are willing to do to achieve our goals, or be a better person than what we were yesterday or a year ago; but it’s not just about that, it’s about of how strong our confidence in ourselves is, how strong our will is, and how capable we are of keep moving forward, no matter the circumstances.

Most people usually makes up excuses to go on, they say they are tired, they say that it’s too hard, some even say that it’s impossible to accomplish their goals; but, I believe that nothing is impossible as long as we have the will to do it, and I mean a very strong will, because if we really want to achieve our goals, we are going to do whatever we need to succeed, we are going to find a way to get what we want, we are going to break any limit in front of us, even if that limit is the sky itself, but first, we have to break the very first limit, we are that first limit, each one of us is the first limit that has to be broken to go further, further than what we are actually, only that way we are going to reach and go beyond our goals.

However, we have to be careful while reaching our goals, because sometimes reaching them; will mean give up other things, and if we are not willing to give them up, maybe we should rethink our goals.

We can achieve every goal we want, but not every goal we want is the one we need.

Edgar.

ESSAY

The movie “The Butterfly Circus” wants to teach about confidence, about friendship and about solidarity. Confidence is important to achieve the things you want in your life, a close friendship will always help you when you think you can’t do something, just the nice words of a person can help, and solidarity, being mean to someone won’t take you higher.

In this short movie you can appreciate the importance of the confidence. At the beginning of the film you see how Will feels like useless and his opinion about himself it’s just a creation based on the opinion of the public and the people who laugh at him. Along the story he learns how to believe in himself, to trust that if make an effort to complete the aspiration you have, you can have them. If you think you’re going to lose, your lost, if you think you can’t do something, you won’t, and if you don’t believe, you’re finish. You have to fight for the things you want.

Mr. Mendez is a good person, and a good friend that helps the other start trusting them. I think in life you always need a close person who has the value to tell you when you’re wrong and applause you when you’re right. Just a person to be with you in your ups and downs is all you need, if you see that someone believes in you it’s easier to make the same. In this case, Mr. Mendez is the only one who tells Will his not going to help him because he needs to start doing things alone, if a person tells you that, I think it is only for your best.

Usually streets are filled with homeless persons, and the most common reaction is to look away and move forwards. The Butterfly Circus is a second option, a second life and a second opportunity for these persons that don’t receive any help by the society. Sometimes you should be more solidary and help the ones who really need a shoulder to cry on or someone who’ll listen.

Your life can change very easily. You just have to believe and fight for your dreams and never ever give up on your aspiration. Believe is a beautiful honor and it’s something we all should have. A few words can change the way you see all your life and catch every opportunity you have because maybe it could be the last.

Cristian R.