Throughout this year I got better at public speaking, in both smaller and larger crowds. This growth was really shown in 2 classes, World History, and Language Arts. In both of these classes we worked on a project called Imperialism Monologue. In just Language Arts, we also did something socratic seminars. Through these I got better at addressing all sorts of groups, small, medium, and big.

 

In the Imperialism Monologue, we created and embodied a character, and through a live performance to a crowd of people, explained how imperialism effected them. In this project, in addition to learning about how imperialism effected people across the world, it also taught us skills needed to present to a large crowd. The crowd we performed our final performance to was about 50 people. Of course, I was able to practice my monologue in front of my class mates before that final performance. This became the first big skill that helped me, to practice. Odds are, if I’m going to be speaking to a large crowd, I will have time to prepare what I’m going to say ahead of time. I learned to utilize this time practicing and revising whatever I’m going to say. Of course, at times something might go wrong, such as in my performance, one of the props you’re using breaks. This leads to another skill. That somethings won’t go right, but you just need to roll with it. When my prop broke, I just ignored it and went with what I was doing, because I realized that if you pay attention to it, you will ruin your performance. You would break character, and it could be hard to get back into character, and back into that scene. In other presentations that aren’t performances, this skill still applies. You can ruin the flow if you try to correct your mistake when it happens. It is better to clarify later what you meant, than to try and fix it then. Both of these skills were helpful and let me perform my monologue easily.

 

However, there are still skills I learned up until my final performance. One of this skills is to improvise. Now I didn’t improvise my entire script, but sometimes a little improvising is a good thing. This can let you try out new things, and was a way for me to test different tones and lines. Improvising can be a good way to add character and fix things you didn’t even know could be fixed. Speaking of adding character, another skill I learned was to invest into what you want to say. In a performance, you will want to invest into the story and the character you are portraying. In a speech, you want to invest into the topic of the speech, whether it was a research topic, or anything else. This could mean to study in advance, or be as simple as smiling and being engaging while you speak.

 

The other activity that helped me in public speaking were Socratic Seminars. These were either small group or class-wide discussions. In Language Arts we were all assigned the same book to read and to read to a certain section of the book. We would then discuss them in our group or as a class to gain a better understanding of them. The discussions required us to speak out loud to the entire group, whether we were putting in our opinion or asking a question. This forced me to leave my comfort zone. Leaving my comfort zone is an essential part to being to perform and grow as a speaker. These skills: practice, go with it, improvise, and leaving your comfort zone, are all things that let me become a better public speaker.