Interpersonal Skills-Oratory Skills

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Interpersonal Skills-Oratory Skills Mr(s). Anonymous 05/21/15 (Thu) 07:03:37 No.4470

Hello lads, hopefully in this thread the discussion will be on notable experiences with public speaking, how best to work with others in social situations, and what to do when trying to work on improving those skills; Also considering interpersonal communication in general and making impressions, experiences relevant.

I guess, to some degree, it could also be a greentext thread. With that in mind, I'll look into my own experiences.

>Be me

>In high school

>Be in some volunteer group because the school demands it for a diploma

>Head of the group notices I have an alright oratory ability

>proceeds to abuse it

>puts me up to speak on behalf of holocaust victims

>easily the most stressful work out of the entire year

>reading their letters and notes aloud with one of them behind me

>Auditorium/public speaking area pitch-black save for some ceiling lighting and my podium lamp

>Stressed to hell and back

>ringing occurs in my ears, can't hear anything

>anything except the sound of my voice and heartbeat

>go through ten minutes of letters with little to no pauses or breaks in speech

>because I cannot see nor hear my audience

The "Head" gave me a lot of praise for that. I guess forgetting other people exist and getting locked in your own world helps for public speaking.

Mr(s). Anonymous 05/21/15 (Thu) 15:55:24 No.4471

Fun fact:

Acording to a number of poling agencies, the #1 fear of people (USAmericans at least) is public speaking.

#2 is death, #3 is spiders, #4 is drowning.

Which means, statistically, you would rather drown in a pool of spiders than give a presentation.

The beauty of it? So would your audience. They would be just as fucking stressed as you are when you're on stage, so feel free to relax. They'll be sympathetic.

Mr(s). Anonymous 05/21/15 (Thu) 20:27:58 No.4473

>>4471

That's some poppycock, when you put it like that I could jack off in front of a million people without caring.

For thread:

I have public speaking issues, although I've never had the opportunity to question others about how I appear I can feel a jitter in my voice and sweat on my legs. I expect I look as nervous as a feel.

I don't expect anyone to be able to help me with my own nervousness, but anyone know how to maintain a calm posture and control my voice jitter? I feel like being a certain degree of nervous is a good thing, keeps you in check, but looking nervous is another thing.

Mr(s). Anonymous 05/21/15 (Thu) 20:51:54 No.4474

>>4473

There's a trick I learned from the mental hospital about a thinking strategy called mindfulness.

It's more for staying calm and not letting your emotions control your day, and staying "mindful" of yourself; but it can also help in public speaking by putting you in your own little nirvana, focusing on your task in the moment rather than the consequences of your actions and what they mean to others, especially those around you.

Mr(s). Anonymous 05/22/15 (Fri) 10:54:37 No.4479

>>4470

Maybe the "Head" was just being nice. I recently graduated college and have been given good grades for remarkably poor presentations.

My final assignment was to give a presentation on my group's work in dendrochronology. To put it simply we dated easily over 100 trees, of an ecosystem (forest) that had been damaged by a tornado near campus.

It was an unfortunate coincidence that during my final week of my final semester I happened to be going through extreme benzo withdrawals. This presentation was on day 4. (In the online recovery community there is much debate over which day of sobriety is truly the worst, day 3 or day 4.)

Anyways I'm standing up there with two female biology majors. (This was for a biogeography class which was mostly made up of biology majors and a few geography majors.) I'm stuttering over my words and can't put together coherent thoughts. The other two people in my group were worthless: one of them actually dated a few trees and created a useful figure in Adobe Illustrator, the other didn't do a single fucking thing. So of course they have nothing to say, and the instructor is my advisor so it's really just me saying a few confused things and then him asking me a question. This goes on for a little over 20 minutes. I honestly didn't want to even go there at 7 am that morning, but I mustered up my last ounce of strength and went. I was that close to throwing in the towel. Anyways I walked away from that abysmal presentation with an A, most likely because it was graded by my advisor. No other explanation would make sense.

So if you're going on to university, suck as many of your instructors johnsons (in a metaphorical sense) and you'll go far.

Mr(s). Anonymous 05/22/15 (Fri) 13:44:03 No.4482

>>4479

I give poppycockty presentations too, at least I think I do, but I notice I get a better grade when my instructors ask questions.

Honestly as long as they can really tell you know the information your presenting, even if you're unable to present in a linear fashion well, then they feel satisfied 9/10 times.

I think what's more important to them than the presentation is the actual knowledge that their students attain and retain; I mean that'd make sense to me.

Mr(s). Anonymous 05/22/15 (Fri) 16:04:02 No.4485

>>4473

choking your chicken in public isn't exactly "speaking," but I think I understand where you're coming from. That exists more on taboos than general fear or anxiety.

But, in an attempt to force this false equivalence into some form of functioning reference, would you rather beat off in public or die?

I'd rather the former.

If someone walked onto stage at a symposium, I'd probably just get video because >>>/b/ would probably love it.