What Makes a Great Speech?

Week 2: What Makes a Great Speech?

What are the qualities that make a great speech? Is it the speaker? Is it the content of the speech? Or is it the way the speech is portrayed?

After watching Nick’s speech (a motivational speaker) it can be clearly seen why Nick is such a motivational speaker. Nick who has no arms and no legs gets up in front of the youth of today and talks to them about anything and everything. However if you were to take the visual side of this speech out and only listen to the words Nicks says he would still be a great motivational speaker. So what are the elements that makes Nick a great motivational speaker? First of all Nick who suffers from a rare birth defect which leaves him having no arms and legs, is able to talk freely about this condition in a way that explores the positives in life. He speaks in his own form. He doesn’t try to be anyone else when he talks and it is a vital part that makes his speech so effective. Another element that made Nick’s speech motivational was that fact that he had fun with his speech and his audience. He made appropriate jokes that suited the environment he was in. The content of the speech was light hearted and eye opening, it was another element that make Nick’s speech effective. While Nick was only telling stories about his life and what he can do, the underlining message of ‘everything is possible’ was executed well. The fact that Nick relied on the involvement of his listeners was also well incorporated and an enjoyable aspect to his speech (Vujicic, 2011).  

Martin Luther King, Junior’s speech, ‘I have a Dream’, was another well executed speech. The speech ‘I have a Dream’, which was about uniting as one no matter what your skin colour was, included a range of aspects that made an effective speech. Martin had a strong and powerful voice that he controlled well to emphasis certain parts of his speech over others. He used techniques such as rising and lowering his voice to make a clear and strong points, as well as depicting his passion of the subject within his voice and throughout his speech. While Nick’s Speech and Martin’s speech are two completely different speeches, spoken years apart from each other they still have an element the same that shows what makes an effective speech. This element is themselves. During Nick’s speech he doesn’t pretend to be someone he is not, but instead talks about the achievements and obstacles he has overcome. Martin shows this element of himself by sharing with the world his dream about how the world should unite as one and be accepting of everyone (Martin Luther King, Jr., 2013).

Overall after listening to both of these speeches I believe that what makes a great speech is the speaker and how they portray the use of their voice to put across their main point or message.


Reference List (Week 2):


Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). I have a Dream . Available: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vDWWy4CMhE). . Last accessed 15th of March 2016.

Nick Vujicic. (2011). Motivational Speeches. Available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snDQe3tWwRQ&feature=related. . Last accessed 15th of March 2016.

 

What Makes a Professional Voice?

Week 2: Professional Voice

What makes a professional voice? Is it someone who has a clear, strong, formal and or bold voice? Or is it someone who knows there high up position in society and portrays it through their voice? Personally I believe that a professional voice is a combination of both of these factors. This can be depicted as the word professional to me means, someone or something that acts in a respectful, appreciate and genuine manner. When referring these terms with a voice the adjectives including clear, strong and bold come to mind. This can be seen as someone who speaks in a clear and strong manner is in my opinion someone who will be heard, compared to someone who may speak in an unclear, slow or informal way. However having said this, there are many other factors that contribute to speaking in a professional voice.

 

Another factor that in my opinion contributes to a professional voice, includes the person themselves. Every time I hear a speech or radio transcript where I am unable to see the speaker, I automatically picture the person based on what their voice sounds like. Therefore when I hear someone talk who has a low toned voice or perhaps a voice that lacks clear or strong aspects, I immediately switch off to the contents of their speech. However if someone was to speak in a confident and formal manner which was clear to me, I would be able to pick up the main message from their tone of voice.  Having said and stated these factors, a professional voice to me needs to include the aspects of a confident speaker, with a strong, clear and formal tone of voice.   

Week 1: New Script Recording

Week 1

The following recording, is a recording of my own voice. The recording was a News script and can be seen as below.

 

 

 https://soundcloud.com/beck_anne-user-606680066/week-1-news-script-recording (SoundCloud, 2016).
 

 

After listening back to my own recording of my voice, I can identify many strengths and weakness I have noticed and picked up. My strengths from this activity include the following:

o   I have a bold clear voice.

o   Being a female I have a slight feminie side to my voice.

 

The weakness I noticed from my own recording based on this activity include the following:

o   At times my voice seems to almost crack showing my nerves in my tone of voice.

o   I sometimes stumble on words.

o   The speed in which I talk at is quite fast and could be slowed down.

o   I noticed that at times I replace, drop and add certain words that differ from the original script.

 

Based on these weakness, the improvements I could make to better improve my tone of voice could include, slowing the speed of my voice down. By doing this, it will not only make my voice clearer and easier to understand it might also help with my tendance to replace, drop and add words that aren’t originally in the script. Another benefit to slowing my voice down could also limit the words that I stumble on as my mouth has a chance to properly pronounce each word. I was also unsure about the 'Grab' and 'Out' section of the news script, therefore when completing this activity again next time I will aim to understand these concepts in more of a depth. These improvements will be one of the many aims I intend to focus on throughout the duration of this Speech and Script course, that will ultimately help and benefit my role as a pre-service teacher.        

Reference List (Week 1):

SoundCloud . (2016). News Script Recording . Available: https://soundcloud.com/beck_anne-user-606680066/week-1-news-script-recording. Last accessed 8th of March 2016.

Week 1: The Importance of Voice

Week 1: Activity 2

After listening to a recording on Julia Gillard’s voice it was depicted from voice coach Lucy Cornell that Julia Gillard had a strong and powerful voice range that lacked a feminine side and or tone (Cornell, L. 2010). My view on this representation of Gillard’s voice was strongly impacted by her Misogyny Speech presented in 2012. After listening to her Misogyny Speech I agree with Cornell that Julia Gillard does in fact lack a feminine tone in her voice, however I believe that is this due to the content in which she delivered in this speech. Her speech which is directed to the leader of opposition (Tony Abbott), discusses his sexist and prejudiced view to not only Julia Gillard but also the women of the 21^st century. She states and raises some clear points towards how Abbott has disrespectfully portrayed women and their role in society. Therefore I believe that due to this view the leader of opposition has on women of the 21^st century, Gillard doesn’t show a feminine side or tone in her voice in fear that it would not be heard or accepted in parliament.

Based on Julia Gillard’s Misogyny Speech, my reaction as a female is that I’m strongly influenced by the content of the speech opposed to the delivery of the speech. This can be depicted as the content of the speech is something that I as a female have seen or have been a part of that influences my reaction to focus more on content. It was asked that if Julia Gillard had a different voice (like the actress Cate Blanchett for example) would my views be changed or differently influenced. My view towards the content on the speech would be the same as seen by Gillard’s normal voice, however my view towards the delivery of the speech would be more relatable as Cate Blanchett has that feminie quality within her voice that would better represent the women of the 21^st century.   

Reference List (Week 1):

Cornell, L. (2010). Julia Gillard's Voice. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEybGzg1Nxs. . Last accessed 8th of March 2016.


 

Just a Little Bit About Me

Hello,

My name is Rebecca Wade and I'm currently a third year student studying a bachelor of Secondary Education. I'm majoring in Home Economics and English at the CQU Noosa Campus.

I'm 20 years old and live in Gympie (but most the time I just tell people I'm from the Sunshine Coast area). I was inspired to become a teacher from one of my own teachers during my high school years. It was through their passion, flare and knowledge of their subject area that intrigued and inspired me to enrol in my degree. I quite often get reminded that I'm only 20 years old and some people still only see me as a kid myself, however I see my age as something I can relate with the students of today (as I have recently been through what they are going through).

This degree has been challenging and overwhelming at times, although the friendships and support of people who were once strangers to me are now the reason and motivation I strive to achieve more from this degree.

I'm excited to see what this Speech and Script Course has to offer and all the opportunity that lie ahead throughout this course.

Home Economics Task Reflection

Hospitality Function

Culture Function

After receiving the necessary and vital help from my following classmates I was able to come up with an activity that supported the curriculum of home economics and also incorporated the fundamental contribution towards technology. This task can be seen by the following description and also the mind map below.  

Task:

o   Getting students to choose at least three different cultures that interested them or appealed to them. From here students need to research their style of cuisine, methods of preparation, equipment used and forms or ways of presenting foods. Via a blog the students need to record their findings on each of the three cultures discussing the positives and negatives of all three cuisines.

o   Then as a class students will to divide themselves into two groups need to pick two different cuisines and developed and create a three course menu that will be presented to the other group.

o   Students will need to think about, budget, availability of foods, presentation, menu choices, the nutrition available within each meal (throughout the application my fitness) and how hard their menu is to prepare. All these aspects will need to be recorded within a process journal (either via their blog or a wiki page).

o   Students will also be required to make a website as a group which will have their overall menu, fundamental research of their chose cuisine, images and examples of their trial cooks and a reflection of their function.

o   To assess their final menus, each group will be asked to create an instant restaurant that related to their chosen culture. Once they have decorated and produced their three course menu students of the other group will get to taste their finally foods (Just for a little bit of fun).

o   Based on their own reflection, students will also need to record (either throughout their blog or website) a score in which they believe the other team has achieved. Their score will need to be justified.

The digital technologies involved within this task can and should include Skype or YouTube (to see how other countries prepare, cook and present foods and how it is different from Australia), blogger (to recorded their process journal), Weebly (to show to the class their findings and final products, my fitness (to count the calories and nutrition available within their chosen foods) and wiki (another option for their process journal).  

Reflective Synopsis

EDSE12024

Assessment Task 1

Reflective Synopsis

After participating within the weekly embedded tasks, with relation to my own blog posts there is so much that I believe I have learnt, with regards to the vast range of digital technologies that can improve learning and offer good pedagogies. After discovering and learning about Bloom’s Taxonomy, the SAMR Model and the Dimensions of learning, I believe that throughout my blog posts I have gained a deeper and stronger understanding of how technology can be used within the classroom and how it benefits student learning, whether it may be individual learning or collaborative learning. This understanding and evidence of my own learning towards digital technologies will be depicted from my own contribution towards my blog posts, how effective and useful each technology could be within a classroom (with relation to the SAMR Model), evidence of how I have used each technology and my own contribution to other class members blogs within the online environment and face to face interactions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Throughout the duration of this digital pedagogies course so far, I have not only managed to contribute my understanding of each of the chosen technologies in all five embedded tasks, I have also managed to understand that a pedagogy is simply the art of teaching which defines student learning. At the beginning of this course I wasn’t confident in completing the embedded tasks, due to the fact that my prior knowledge towards digital technologies was very limited. However throughout my weekly blogs it can be seen that each week I became more and more confident and efficient towards understanding and using the nominated technology for the given week and also how technologies can be used to portray good pedagogies. This can be seen throughout my blog when comparing my embedded task one response to my embedded task five response. Overall throughout my blog posts I covered and developed a range of digital technology skills including, contributions to my blog, how to edit images, what Thinglink is and how to used sky view. After using the information provided within the course materials and my prior knowledge of these digital technologies I was able to clearly establish what the technology was capable of, the technical aspects of it, the learning outcomes it provided for student learning, how the particular technology could be used within a classroom based on the SAMR Model and evidence that showed my improved digital skills. Throughout my blog posts it can be clearly seen that all of these aspects and elements required were highlight and outlined throughout my blog posts.

One example of this can be seen throughout my interpretation of weeks 4 embedded task. During this particular week task I decided to focus on images. Throughout this week I had overcome a huge step in my attitude towards digital technologies, as I was more confident in completing the task due to the fact that I had a lot of prior knowledge and experience with incorporating images within learning. I believe that I was effectively able to include the technical aspects of images, the learning outcomes that they could offer to improve student learning and a suitable range of activities that could be used to incorporate images within the classroom. I also believe that I was able include the SAMR Model’s four stages of substitution, augmentation, modification and redefinition and showed an effective example of how I had used the digital technology of images by changing the desired editing of an image. This blog post can be further viewed under week four’s embedded task.

However while I believe that I had effectively meet the criteria that was required for my own individual blog, I don’t believe that I managed to maintain this same outcome for the participation and contribution in the online learning community. This can be seen as during the first two to three weeks I didn’t comment or post anything about anyone’s blog. However during the fourth and fifth week of completing the embedded tasks, I was able to figure out how to respond and comment on other class members blogs. Therefore with relation to the criteria expect within the online learning community I do not believe that I have fully met the criteria as I only starting contributing within this online learning well into week four.

Another reason to why I believe that I have not met the criteria expected within the online learning community is due to the fact that my comments were not in-depth and did not offer constructive feedback. One of the reasons for this can be seen that within our group to was difficult to criticise blogs of my class members. Therefore with relation to this section of the task and the requirements expected I could have better extended my comments with constructive feedback to form more formative and engaging responses. However having said this, my participation within the course with relation to class member or face to face discussion, whether it was about the embedded task or discussions related with the course materials, I strongly believe that my participation within this was much more in-depth and constructive. This can be seen as when in class I shared my opinion when it was required and also worked in collaboration with other class members on certain aspects of given tasks.

Overall after reflecting on my own participation with the weekly embedded tasks it can be seen that I have effectively completed the tasks and engaged within the digital technology of a blog. By using my blog as a source of communication it can also be seen that I have used and developed of range of different digital skills throughout research conducted and by navigating my way around certain digital tools. With relation to the SAMR Model, Bloom’s Taxonomy and the dimensions of learning it can be seen that I have weekly highlighted learning outcomes and learning theories that could be achieved by using technology. Based on my own blog the main recommendation I need to improve on would be my ability to interact within the online learning community and offer constructive feedback.