Speech Evaluation-Cuture

Bethany Brauer

COM 105-122

Instructor Akin

18 March 2015

Cultural Speech Assessment

            This cultural speech was definitely a tough one. That was truly embarrassing. I knew the information but it was not the topic for me. I am clearly not a history teacher and wasn’t really sure how to get the information across. My Cultural Speech had many flaws compared to my strengths. I felt as if the speech was very choppy, did not flow well, and I couldn’t hold the audiences attention. On the bright side, I thought I maintained a good voice level throughout the speech.

            One of my major weaknesses was the lack of preparation before my speech. I had every intention of studying and bettering my speech over spring break but that did not happen. The night before speech I only read over my speech once, I didn’t practice aloud I only said it in my head. Before speech class I chose to watch 90210 because I was nervous and I knew it would relax me. Not preparing for my speech led to many mistakes throughout my speech. I didn’t make good eye contact because I had to read off my cards and I had written so much on my cards because I didn’t get to know my speech very well. Next time I will e prepared. I will give myself a time crunch on when everything must be done including my written note cards. This way I will be able to get to know my cards and rewrite my cards to condense the information on each card. Without having to read my cards line by line next time I will hopefully succeed in the way I show my interest for my topic.

I am passionate about Moldova and have a love for the country but I did not portray my passion to the audience. I did not pick a very good topic for myself to deliver. I am not a history teacher nor do I desire to be a history teacher. I should have picked another topic involving Moldova instead of doing the history. The organization was in chronological order but the information I gave may have been confusing for those who didn’t know much about the Russo-Turkish war, Romania, and the Soviet Union. I could tell that on the occasional times I looked up that people were lost and not interested. In my next speech I will strive to make my speech interesting and relevant to all. Instead of the audience listening to a speaker reading off her note cards on some boring, not so well put together speech.

            Another weakness was the use of my slide show. I used pictures that may not have been necessary. Even though I had “turn slide on” and “turn slide off” on my notecard I didn’t pay any attention to it. I would forget and once I turned my slide on, I didn’t present it well at all. It was like an awkward pause and I wasn’t really sure how to explain it. I just assumed people would get what was going on. Next time I will be more studious and practice my visual aids and be able to explain what the visual aid clearly.

            The only positives I could get from my speech was my voice, the fact that I put a blank space between each slide, and my time. I thought that I did an okay job at changing my voice and projecting well throughout my speech. Even though I did not use my slide show well I at least had the blank slides in between. I also did well on the time. I owe that to my experience in Moldova. In my conclusion I put some pictures and talked about the meaning of them. Even though that was rough, it helped me get through the speech in the time limit.

            In conclusion, I have more weaknesses than strengths in public speaking. Although I am a weak speaker I now know that I need to prepare, make more eye contact, reduce what is written on my cards, show passion for the topic, maintain the audiences attention, and pick a topic I will be more interesting while speaking. I chose to procrastinate and it greatly influenced the ay I delivered my speech. Even though I need to improve a lot by the next speech and am embarrassed about this speech I now know not what to do next time.