Forum Posts

Part 1

You have almost certainly seen someone who was a very talented speaker as well as someone with very limited capabilities. Perhaps it was a boss or someone in a social organization with which you are involved, but you have probably seen people who struck you as either good or not so good. What made the good speakers good, and what made the other speakers need some work?

Think about what you have learned from Lesson 2 on speech preparation. Apply these concepts to your analysis. Did preparation play a role in effective delivery?

Please, in an effort to avoid personal values, do not discuss politicians or religious clergy in this forum. This should not refer to public figures on television, or a YouTube clip, but people you have seen in person.

Part 2

Based on what you have seen and discussed here, what are your biggest hopes for the speech you are presenting this week? What do you think are going to be your strengths?  How do you plan to prepare and conduct research for your speeches? Also, if you have concerns, comment on how you plan on dealing with them.

 

Part 1

The worst speaker that I would like to discuss here is from back in the days when I was at a high school in my country. The speaker was the district education officer who came to our school to deliver a speech about the importance of education for the development of our country. There are many things that I can discuss here to show why I think that was the worst speaker. The first thing is the body language of the speaker which was not synchronized with what he was saying. Second is the preparation of the speaker. He was reading from a piece of paper and still found it hard to properly speak. I think that he was suffering from public speaking anxiety.

The best speech was that of my father once given in a social gathering to support a political figure. The speech had a lot of statistical data to prove the points of the speech and my father had prepared for it in advance at home for hours. The best thing about the speech, in my opinion, was the trust that my father had in the political figure and the content of the speech.

Part 2

If I were to deliver a speech, I think that my strength is my confidence in myself which would definitely help me. My weakness is my English language expertise which are really limited and what I need to work on to improve it. I think that I need to attend English speaking classes at some point to do so.

 

 

Pick one speech from American Rhetoric’s top 100 speeches list. Listen to or watch the speech, and be sure to take a look at the transcript of the speech below the video or sound clip as well.

Think about how the speech is organized. Can you identify the introduction, body, conclusion, and transitions? Tell us where the body begins, where the conclusion begins, and list at least one transitional phrase from the speech.

Did you find identifying the structure of the speech difficult? Do you think the organization of the speech you chose to analyze contributed to the effectiveness and overall delivery of the message? Why or why not?

The speech that I choose for this forum post is “I Have a Dream” by Martin Luther King, Jr. The speech was delivered on 28 August. 1963. First I read the text of the speech. It was so interesting and full of emotions and hope that I had to search for the video of the speech on YouTube. I think that this speech is one of the greatest example of a piece of literature that is perfectly organized and hence it has become an inspiration for generations.

The speech was almost according to what we have been studying and what has been mentioned in the speech outline. The speaker starts with a catching sentence in which he assures the audience that this occasions would be noted in history as one of the greatest demonstration for freedom. In the introduction part, the speaker has clearly stated that the struggle for equal citizenship has been going on for many decades and it is now time to get together and make this a reality.  The main audience of the speech is not just the black people but also the free nations of the world and those who believe in the equality of human kind.

The body of the speech has presented his views about why giving equal status to all Americans is necessary irrespective of the color of their skin. The body of the speech is full of hope and emotions. This is the part that attracted me the most.

Each paragraph of the speech is a transition but towards the end of the speech, the phrase “I have a dream” has been used magnificently in my opinion to transit from one emotional sentimental view point to another.

The conclusion of the speech is like the summary of the hope for future and strongly presented in my opinion which would not let the listeners what was the whole of the speech about.

 

 

All of us have our own perspective and how we look at things. What are some of the key elements you would consider when deciding how to approach an audience?  The “approach” refers to whether you would appeal to their emotions or address them with logic, use humor or not, etc.

Think about different members of a diverse audience you might address, not all of whom are military personnel or members of  this class.  Pick any two groups and discuss how they might differ from each other and how your speech to them might differ for each group.

You may find concepts in Lesson 4 very helpful with this post.

 

In your answer, consider the following:

How cultural perspectives of the audience could affect their interpretation of problems in the arts, politics, or global relations.

Your own civic and cultural background, assumptions and predispositions and how they would affect your interpretation of the same problems.

How, as a speaker, you would bridge the gaps in your perspective and that of the audience.

For this forum post, the two groups that I have chosen to be my audience are the general public to whom I would like to convey a message of green living and parents of school going children to whom I want to talk about how to deal with the educational issues of their children.

Green living audience

I have chosen the general public which could contain people from any culture. I understand that many people have different perspectives on green living depending on their cultures. For example if there are people from a developed country, I would focus on the scientific reasons of why we need to live green. This would be with an assumption that most of them are educated and somehow familiar with the broader issue of global warming etc. If I have to deliver a speech to people from underdeveloped countries, I would focus on the economic costs of not living a sustainable live. They may not be interested in what science say about global warming unless it’s about their own pockets. I personally read often about the costs of global warming and why green living is necessary. This may make me more aware of these topics and I would not expect my audience to be at the same level when it comes to this information. I would try to give simple facts to bridge the gap between my perspective and audience’s understanding.

Parents of school going children

I am not an expert on the educational psychology or children learning. To be a speaker in front of such audience, I would have to primarily rely on my personal experience as a child and how my parents dealt with me when it came to educational issues. I think that this is a perspective that would attract my audience as this is something they might consider how their children feel. This will automatically fill the gap between my perspective and how the parents think of their children’s education.

 

 

 

Please go to the website American Rhetoric and review the list of Top 100 Speeches. Scan through the speeches and pick two speeches to analyze.

In this forum, describe the speeches you chose and whether or not they are informative or persuasive in nature. Explain why you believe the speeches you chose are informative or persuasive. Don’t forget t use concepts from Lesson 5.

After discussing your chosen speeches, share with us if you think it’s possible to present a purely informative speech without any bias or without using elements of persuasion? Why or why not?

The first speech I chose is “I have a dream” by Martin Luther King Jr. This speech is a pure persuasive speech in which the speaker is building an argument to connect with the audience and convey a message. The message is about civil rights and liberty during a time when the black people were not considered as equal citizens. The audience is mix of different ethnicities. To truly connect with the audience, the speaker starts by building an arguments about the need of civil rights and goes on to try and persuade the audience about this argument. The speech is based on subjective content which needs a high moral ground and sophisticated speech pattern for the speaker to present and convince the audience.

The second speech I chose is “1984 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address” by Mario Mathew Cuomo. This speech is political in nature which means it is to persuade the audience about a political view point but the overall nature of the speech is to provide information about the worst condition under which some American have lived under President Reagan presidency. Information like how some people living in the city cannot pay mortgages and students are not able to afford education due to the failed economic policies of the government.

After discussing your chosen speeches, share with us if you think it’s possible to present a purely informative speech without any bias or without using elements of persuasion? Why or why not?

After I look closely at the second speech that I discussed, I reach a conclusion that there cannot be a pure informative speech because the overall nature of speeches is to convince or persuade others about some information or view point. You might use only your language skills to create a pure persuasive speech but there cannot be a pure informative speech because information has had to be used to persuade.

 

 

Watch Julian Treasure’s presentation called “Shh! Sound Health in 8 Steps”. As you watch his presentation, pay close attention to his visual aids and how he incorporates them in his speech. Using concepts from Lesson 6 and your assigned readings for the week, assess his use of visual aids. What techniques did he use? What visual aids stood out to you the most and why did they catch your eye? Do you think he uses visual aids appropriately and effectively for his presentation? Why or why not?

After your analysis, consider how you will use visual aids in your Speech 4 presentation, which requires the use of a visual aid. What type of visual aid will you use and how will your visual aid enhance your speech presentation?

 

Julian has delivered an effective presentation. Before I talk about the use of Visual aids, I must say the Julian is well aware of the power of his voice. He is an Englishman, therefore, his pronunciation has been really effective.

Julians non-verbal language is also of great effect. He has dressed modestly, and know what he is talking about. His gestures are in line with what he wants to deliver. Especially his hand movements and the position of the hands of the characters in the visual aids is well organized.

He is talking about human different human habits. In the visual aids, the selection of pictures to illustrate the habits Julian is talking about is stunning. It’s just like you can listen to the emotions in the pictures. I am sure it needed a lot of homework. This emphasizes the importance of preparations for speeches and presentations.

If I were to listen to only the presentation by Julian, I would have got bored after a few minutes, but seeing the visual aids, I was kept involved in the speech. In the later part of the presentation, he has explained the ingredients of the speech with the help of arrows which made a great sense to me.

For my speech 4 presentation, I plan to use visual aids that will give meaning to my words. I think that it is extremely important to keep the audience engaged to my speech with the help of relevant visual aids. I also plan to watch YouTube video tutorials to learn to use different visual aids and may be a new software to prepare my presentation.

 

How can the information from this course, combined with information from other courses, training, and reading, help you contribute to the success of a small group? Pick a group of which you have been, or are likely to become a member.  A small group consists of 3 to 12 people. The group must exist to solve some problem in your workplace, profession, community, or society in general. You may find concepts from Lesson 7 very helpful with this forum.

This course and like of this course have been helping me learn the dynamics of collaborating with others and the importance of transferring messages of different nature. I have come to know about the importance of effective communication not just communication. Over here, I would like to give an example of the group that I was a member of which was tasked to give a proposal about the upgradation of a public library back home. I was working in the public library as an assistant to the librarian during an internship period. The management of the library wanted to upgrade the computers and the library management software. Different people were tasked different duties in the group to achieve the common goal of improving the library. I and another of the library staff member were tasked to interview people about how they would want the changes to be implemented. I recall that to be an average experience as I have had a communication gap with the library staff member. This was primarily due to the age difference between me and him. Research suggests that age difference could be a factor to effect the performance of a group (Leman, 2015).

If I have had taken courses like this, I am sure that I might have used different communication techniques that we studied in this course to reduce the communication gap. I could have become a better listener to be understood in return. I would have suggested gathering the people and making a presentation in front of them before we could have asked for their opinions about the desired changed in the library. In short, there could have been many ways the collaboration could have worked better had I been through such a course.

Works Cited

Leman, P. J. (2015). How do groups work? Age differences in performance and the social            outcomes of peer collaboration. Cognitive science, 39(4), 804-820.

 

 

How do you think what you have learned during this course can benefit you in your studies, career, civic, and personal activities? How will you combine it with something you learned outside of this class?

What do you think could have been done better with the course and what did you like the most about the course?

The most important aspect of this course is to realize how important communication and learning to communicate is. Before this course, to be honest, I did not give a lot of weightage to my communication skills, all I thought was to have quality content and deliver it in any way possible to deliver a message. Now, I have realized that it’s not just about the quality of the written or spoken content, it also about your way of communication. This course has helped me learn about the importance of verbal and non-verbal communication. I have learned how to deliver an effective presentation which would definitely help me in my academics and during my professional life. I have also learned about communicating effectively in personal life which is definitely going to add to the quality of my life. I would not be better at engaging in quality discussions with my parents and teachers and would be able to make effective decisions.

Course discussions related to the speeches of historical significance have taught me about the importance of preparing speeches and then delivering them in front of audience. Though I do not intend to stand for public office or engage in any political activity, I would definitely be asked to speak in front of an audience, for which I consider myself prepared now.

The course was well organized in my opinion. I think that adding a video recording facility to the forum would make the course more interesting and interactive. Course participants would be able to see each other and discuss different topics by recording video directly to discussion forums.