Jacob Escarcidamy Initial Barstow Community Coll

Watch the video and answer the following questions.

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1. Using what you learned from the lecture notes what are your initial thoughts on the structure of her speech? What do you think is her attention-getter? What is her clincher? What do you think the purpose of her speech is and how does the structure of the speech support that purpose? What other techniques does she use to engage her audience?
2. Thinking back to last week’s lecture on glossophobia and this week’s reading about Communication Anxiety (Ch 11) what do you think we can learn about facing our own fears in public speaking from her presentation? Do you think a speaker has to be perfect to engage their audience?

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Mariah Rangel

1. When it comes to structure it’s the most important step to help you build your message to your audience. When presenting your message to your audience it’s important you have their attention the enter time, and having a structure will help you achieve that goal. My thoughts on the lecture notes is they’ve helped me to structure my working outline, and my speaking outline I ‘ve learned many new ways how to make my speech better in so many ways to have my audience attention. My initial thoughts on the structure of Megan Washington speech was that I was interested in the way she structured her speech. Listening to her speech, and finding out her story on language made me realize that we can do anything we put our minds to. Even though Megan has a stuttering problem she didn’t let that stop her from the person she wanted to become, and to share with the world. What I think Megan’s attention-getter would be is her a story about herself. When her speech began she said said “I have a problem it’s not the worst thing in the word I’m fine I’m not on fire I know that other people in the world have far worse things to deal with, but for me, language and music are inextricably linked through this one thing. And the thing is that I have a stutter. It might seem curious given that I spend a lot of my life on the stage. One would assume that I’m comfortable in the public sphere and comfortable here, speaking to you guys. But the truth is that I’ve spent my life up until this point and including this point, living in mortal dread of public speaking. Public singing, whole different thing (laughter).” Megan’s clincher I think was her performance when she played her song for her audience. I think Megan’s purpose of her speech would be to encourage people who have anything that trying to stop them from over coming their dreams and goals. When giving her message to the people her goal was to show people they can do anything they put their mind to, and to show the world that even though she has a stuttering problem she can do everything she enjoys doing, like singing. Also that she has the fear of public speaking just like we all do, but it’s what she does that helps her get through her speech. Other techniques she uses during her presentation is playing the piano, and singing a song she wrote. When she preforms she shows the audience why she enjoys singing. She enjoys it because singing makes her feel like she’s talking fluently.

2. What I think we can learn about facing our own fears in public speaking from her presentation would be finding something you enjoy to help you get through your presentation. For example she doesn’t enjoy speaking, but she enjoys singing which helps her get through her presentation. She says “what singing means to mean to me. It’s more than making nice sounds, and it’s more than making nice songs. It’s more than feeling known, or understood. It’s more than making you feel the things that I feel. It’s not about mythology, or mythologizing myself to you. Somehow, through some miraculous synaptic function of the human brain, it’s impossible to stutter when you sing. And when I was younger, that was a method of treatment that worked very well for me, singing, so I did it a lot.” Singing was a method she used to help her, and finding a method for ourselves can help us get through a speech even if that method is taking 20 seconds before our speech. I don’t think a speaker has to be perfect to engage their audience because no one is perfect there’s always going to be a time where we mess up, or get nerves because that’s just how us humans are. What matters is we find ways that will help us improve our speaking skills, and to entertain our audience.

My initial thoughts on the structure of her speech were that it was very well planned with how she added a multitude of things like comedy and seriousness. Her main attention-getter of course has to be her speech impediment because it immediately grabs the listener’s attention showing that this person speaking is both different than the average person and also if they are strong enough to stand on a stage then they have something important to talk about. For her clincher, I feel it has to be the fact that it is important to understand what the speaker or the person you are speaking to is going through to get those words out. When trying to narrow down her purpose I think it just boils down to having the confidence to do something and for her case, in order to cope with that she does what she loves and what helps her and that is singing. One key thing I think we can learn fro this speaker on how to face fears in public speaking is that no matter what no matter how difficult it may seem everybody has the ability to publicly speak and the proof is that she went on stage to hundreds and even millions through video to publicly speak even though she had a stutter. All this leads to the main question of, “Do you think a speaker has to be perfect to engage their audience?”, to which I say absolutely not and I say that because having flaws or not have a perfect speech is human and it helps the audience connect with you on a deeper level because they see themselves in you.