Other Homework Help

Discuss your speech anxiety and listening issues, why you fear them, and how you may overcome them.

As you’ve read this week, speech anxiety is a common problem for many speakers. Even experienced orators can experience nerves before giving a speech. In addition, many of us also need to work on improving our critical listening skills. It is important to begin any Public Speaking class by assessing your own communication skills and setting goals for the term. With hard work, by the end of these five weeks, you should be a more confident speaker and a better listener.

Begin by thinking about any public speaking experiences you’ve had. These don’t have to be formal speeches. Book reports you gave in high school, presentations you made to a club to which you belonged, that time you spoke up in church, a toast, a eulogy, a parent-teacher conference, or even a one on one encounter—all of these count when you’re assessing the kinds of communication situations that make you uncomfortable. Tell us how you feel they went, well or poorly, and specifically why. Then determine what your greatest weaknesses or fears are when it comes to public speaking. What are some ways you can deal with your speech anxiety and improve your public speaking abilities? List three goals that you’ll set for yourself during this class, why you chose them, and how you might overcome them.

Now think about your skills as a listener. As the text notes, we actually spend more of our communication time listening than speaking. Just as you evaluated your speaking abilities, assess your talents as a listener. What are your strengths and weaknesses? Set three goals for improving your ability to listen critically, tell us why you chose them, and how you plan to achieve them.

Somethings to keep in mind to complete this assignment pertaining to my strengths and weaknesses is i have social anxiety, and when nervous I can stutter and overthink. I struggle with being scrutinized and the feeling of everyone staring at me can be quite overwhelming to say the least. Three goals to set for myself during this class is for one building my confidence to speak publicly. Secondly would be to practice speaking more publicly. Lastly, would be to have an A in this class so I can maintain my GPA and get into law school. Public speaking experiences I have had mostly derive from my open mic performances. I actually used to write and perform my poetry. My stage fright would be horrific, and it seemed like no matter how many times I’d perform my anxiety would never get better. The feeling of being judged and not meeting expectation or being perfect seemed to really cause a burden for me; Anyhow, I hope this helps give you some insight to complete this assignment, thank you.