Jordan Gonzalez-Castro Post #1

 

     Let me begin by saying what a wonderful job everyone has done presenting in the speech class, despite it being our first ever presentation. I clearly recall how attentive I was to each speaker who was presenting. Not only was everyone’s performance, preparation, and information well organized and prepared, but it felt as if everyone had done many presentations before this one. While the classmates were presenting, I kept acquiring more information on how this class works, how to present, how to sound more vibrant to an audience, and how to not lose the attention of others. It seemed as if everyone has properly read the chapters because they knew exactly what to do. At the same time, I was feeling the pressure, because I kept on thinking, what if it was me who was the only person to mess up their presentation. Starting off with the first group of presenters, I would like to say they went very well into depth about their chapters, which were chapters one through four. Those first four chapters were the basis of how to prepare a presentation for a speech class. I clearly remember how vibrant their presentation background was, a nice purple color, well organized, and clear pictures that let the listener understand exactly what the speaker was trying to convey. As they explained the chapters in their presentation, I quickly realized they had used all the tips they had told the class in their presentation. One of the speakers had talked about the ten rules that you should use when making and organizing a project. One of those that stood out to me was gather your materials. Little did I notice but using your resources and having index cards or a piece of paper with specific key topics, to refer to, was very helpful. Whenever you get stuck on a specific area of your presentation, all you must do is look at your flashcard and you won’t sit there in awkward silence, instead the complete opposite happens, you sound like you are a professional who studied their topic very well and executed their presentation wonderfully. Another tip that stood out to me was ‘’edit for style’’. Personally, I feel that most people would disregard this, and overload their slides with information, which instantly draws the listeners attention span away. Everyone’s presentations had minimal use of words, and very clear pictures on the PowerPoint slides. This helps use listeners understand what the speaker is trying to say, catch our attention, and keep us engaged. As they wrapped up their presentation, I can’t say I felt nervous about presenting, it seemed natural because I had prepared extremely well for the presentation and used tips from my chapter selection in my presenting habits. My group presented chapters five through nine and I must say, everyone had a very enthusiastic tone, and sounded like they had been studying these chapters for weeks. There was one person who specifically stood out to me, and they were talking as if they had a major in speech! That kept me drawn into our presentation and calmed my nerves down. When it was my turn to present, I kept things simple, got to the point, delivered information while also adding some words that evoke images so that the listeners could picture what it is that I am saying in their minds. Not only did that allow them to stay more engaged, but also to better understand the scenarios I was going over. It was very important to me to make all this information I had learned, easy to understand to the class. What I did was use flash cards, split my chapter into sections and break down the most important points and tips that one can use when presenting. With the use of flash cards, clear images, and imagery, I feel like my presentation was very good for it being my first one in this course! There are many ways to present. Not everyone has the same style as me, maybe others like to include some bullet points, comments, or real-life scenarios to further indulge in their topics. As my group’s presentation ended, we realized that presenting isn’t as bad as you may make it seem. Once you prepare well and follow all the tips you learned in the chapters, you do way better than you expect! At last, it was the final groups turn to present. Their chapters included ten through twelve, which had to do with the different types of presentations. They started off by going into depth about the different types of presentations, which included informative, persuasive, and special occasion presentations. In this case, I believe we all made an informative presentation, because of the involvement we had in sharing information that we had all been assigned and shared it amongst ourselves to enhance our knowledge and become better speakers. What I learned from all our presentations today was that not only does good preparation make us better speakers, but allows us to succeed, grab others attention, and have fun while speaking. Not everything we do has to make us nervous. I know a lot of the classmate’s dislike giving speeches, especially with this many people listening. Getting out of our comfort zones is a great thing to do. I noticed that when you have at least most of these tips or combine the rules into our presentation, it becomes easier to express yourself, sound professional, and deliver easier than when you just ‘’wing it’’. I would love to see how learning this information will impact our future presentations and speeches. I truly enjoyed the entire presentation from beginning to end because I didn’t lose my attention once, and from switching from one group to another, there was a small pause period which allowed me to take a small break and gather my thoughts. I learned a ton from this experience and this course, which I did not expect with it only being the first week in this course. I can’t wait to see what the future holds.