For anyone who didn't find it immediatly obvious, I am stricken from time to time by crippling stage fright. In general, I have trouble talking to people I don't know well, and in particular I freeze up when I know there are more than about four people listening to what I'm saying. Symptoms include mind-erasing fear and the complete inability to form coherant words. Anyway, considering that, I think I did pretty well.
My first disasterous, terribly embarrasing attempt could have been easily prevented if I hadn't assumed the speech was the same as the skits, and I'd brought my notes with me. My second attempt, wherein I actually managed to get to the end of my writing prompt, shows that to be clearly true. Having the words right there compensates for the fact that my mind has gone blank, and when I read from a prompt it's easy to pretend that I'm not speaking my own words, and so I don't have to be affraid of what the people listening will think of them.
Things I would do differently: Practice more and familiarize myself much more intimately with my speech. Why? Because that way when I inevitably freeze up and humiliate myself, I'll know for sure that it wasn't because I didn't prepare enough before hand. There's still some doubt in my mind about that particular nightmare, and there needn't be. Also, I'd strive for a bit more fluency, which can be heard at the best of times, much less when you're chewing on your pulse. I'd also probably include a visual aid, as a large piece of posterboard would be great for hiding behind.
In retrospect, my speech itself lacked variety in sentence structures. Also, I'm beginning to realize that it may be more effective to try and learn all the vocabulary and grammar in my writing and then translate the english story I know by heart into Japanese on the spot, rather than simply memorizing a series of japanese sentences that I posess little understanding of.
2 件のコメント:
Ainsworth san,
I completely understand where you are coming from when it comes to the having stage fright. I have found that becoming very comfortable with what I’m saying helps me a great deal. The other day in lab Sato Sensee told me to start at the end of a sentence and repeat little pieces of the sentence several times until i become comfortable. This has not only improved my fluency with the last kaiwa but also helped me with memorization. I'm sorry if I’m repeating something she's already said to you, but I find this method very helpful. Overall, I found your speech very interesting and easy to follow. Good job.
I thought your speech content was great (especially since I had the same title). I believe that you have no problem in memorizing things, it is just the pressure of delivering in front of an audience that causes you to blank out. That being the case, the best way to work on that is just to do it often. Try taking some courses where there are frequent presentations; it will definitely help.
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