I haven’t made many public speeches or presentations before, and the time I got to make a presentation before the class came as a shock. I generally don’t talk much, but having no option to pull out, I had to dig deep to instigate myself to stand before the class and make the presentation that I ‘managed’ to contrive. I was nervous and this reflected in the way I began my presentation. My voice was feeble, and I just couldn’t put words in my mouth. However, knowing the consequences of my action, I began my presentation. I had done my homework in collecting the required information to make my presentation, and armed with whatever I could store in memory, I started my speech. I guess a problem that can kill a great speech from an average speech is confidence. Once low on confidence, everything else falls apart, and this is precisely what happened to me.
Before I move forward with my self-analysis, I need to thank my colleague for being so forth-coming with his unbiased reflection of my presentation. I strongly believe that a critique helps an individual become better, and I am definitely grateful to him for making an honest assessment. My speech was on the topic of the history of the Qatar Foundation. Like my colleague said, I covered four parts of the Qatar Foundation in my speech, which included the history of the foundation, the schools that the foundation is affiliated with, its achievements, and its purposes or objectives. In the first part of the speech, where I talked about the history of the foundation, I was confident of the information I had and could thus deliver the facts convincingly, even though it was again with a lot of nervousness. I mentioned that the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development is a private, non-profit organization, and that the ultimate purpose of the Foundation was to serve the people of Qatar in the area of education, science and research, and community development. In doing so, the idea or focus of the Foundation is to develop managerial and entrepreneurial leaders for the future, and develop sustainable human capacity, social, and economic prosperity.
I am aware that I spoke in a hurriedly manner as I was nervous, and I just couldn’t get myself to look at the audience because of this. This certainly ruined my presentation, and I am aware that the class had to strain their ears to understand what I was saying. I did have difficulty in expressing myself in class because of the way I pronounce words. I do have a mother-tongue influence and this made it hard for me to articulate in a manner that would have presented the class a better picture of what I was saying. However, I am sure, as my colleague agrees, was able to provide credible information about the Foundation.
Since the Qatar Foundation is keen on developing education, research, and community development, the Foundation associates itself with some of the leading universities in the U.S. I was able to provide names of some of the universities the Foundation has affiliation with, and some of the names I gave were those of the Texas A&M University, Georgetown University and Cornel University, to name a few. The Foundation has done remarkably well to help develop the standard of education n Qatar, and has been able to arrange student-exchange programs so that cultural exchanges gain ascendency. I am quite sure that I did my best to educate the class on these issues.
I will like to add at this point that I could see the class looking at me. This showed that they were taking a particular interest in what I was saying, even though, in my heart, I was trembling with fright. I have never made a presentation before such a large audience, and this experience will help me overcome stage fear to a certain extent. As I began to speak more, I was able to consciously feel a little more relaxed. Perhaps this is what happens when a person is exposed to a situation a number of times; the more one practices public speaking, the better they get at it. As my colleague points out, I do believe that my introduction was far more powerful than the presentation. There are two reasons for this; one, I know most of my classmates personally, and two, I knew myself, and so, it was easy for me to introduce myself and the topic to the class. My problem started as I began to talk about my subject. Even though I had come prepared to make my presentation, the more than the anticipated time was taking my mind away from the topic and making it personal. The sudden realization that I was the center of attraction froze me, and I started to speech out of context. I wasn’t able to get my facts right, and I started to mumble and pause out of nervousness. I didn’t have this feeling when I started my introduction, but now, as the class became focused on what I was saying, I became conscious that everyone in the class was listening to all that I said, and this stopped my brain from working. This is when I started to get my act all wrong. I couldn’t really express myself correctly when it mattered. For example, as my colleague rightly pointed out, I couldn’t really provide specific information on the Foundation’s achievements, and instead, provided general information. This was because my brain wasn’t working; the stress was far too much for me to assimilate the right information at the right time. As all these were going through my mind, I did notice the class understood my predicament and acted most responsibly.
As my colleague points out, had I been able to overcome this period of uncertainty, I could have given a better account of myself on stage. Another point that I would like to make here is my inability to involve the class in the presentation. My presentation was more of a speech than a presentation. I just couldn’t get the class involved to the extent of them nodding in appreciation or smiling when I tried to amuse them. Effectiveness of speech comes with actions. I just frozen in front of the class and talked and talked and talked. Never did I use any facial expressions to give life to a sentence or word; neither did I move my hands to be more expressive. I owe it to the class for being so patient and hearing me through a drab session. My inability to articulate words must have made the session boring. I lost the plot when I couldn’t eextemporize and had to look at the notes that I had in my hand. Since the fluency was lost, and I had no idea where I had left my speech, I had to pause on a number of occasions. This killed whatever impression i had created at the start of my presentation.
It becomes extremely difficult to concentrate on the job in hand once you become aware of people looking at you, and if you happen to be the only person on the center-stage, it becomes even more problematic. I wanted to talk in detail about Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, who heads the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, and is its chairperson. I wanted to talk about her active role in bringing about reforms in the education and social sector. I wanted to tell the class that Her Highness, as the Special Envoy for Basic and Higher Education under UNESCO, was actively promoting a number of international projects to improve the quality and accessibility of education worldwide. There was a lot more that I wanted to talk about, but the fear blanked my mind.
I was not able to provide concrete illustrations of the Foundation, which could have made it more interesting for the audience to listen to and visualize. I definitely need to improve my way of delivering a speech. It is not only the vocal part, but the physical, non-verbal part of communication that I need to work on. I just couldn’t get myself to look at the audience, and every time I tried to do this, I would retract as I could see my classmates stare at me. I am aware that by being vocal getting animated, and keeping eye contact with the audience would have enlivened the session, but with no prior experience of public speaking, and clouded with fear, I just couldn’t even offer valuable information. My accent is also a cause for worry. I could have overcome a part of this had I been able to be more expressive; and when I say expressive, I mean by opening up to the crowd by engaging with them more body gestures and hand movements. This would have taken the focus of my accent away from the audience. However, this was also not to be. By using my hands, I could have appeared more confident and convincing, and this would have buoyed the audience to involve them in the presentation. Accent and pronunciation go hand-in-hand. I should have been bolder enough to understand the importance of intonation. I confess that I did everything that was required of me to make a strong presentation, which included my extensive research into the Qatar Foundation, but because I had no prior experience of addressing a crowd, I fumbled and spoilt all the effort I took to the build-up of this presentation. Therefore, as my colleague again pointed out, I need to appear more confident so that I can be more convincing and keep the attention of the audience alive until the end of the speech. I agree with my colleague that these are some of the finer points I need to refine, in order to improve my style of delivering a speech.
I came prepared and knew what I was talking about to the extent of getting through the introduction. I had memorized facts that I wanted to disclose during the presentation, buy shyness and fear overrode my ability to connive to deceive. It was not till late into the presentation that I had the self-belief that I could get through the presentation unscathed, and so, it became obvious to all that I had gathered some confidence and could talk better. I had all the required information with me to make a great speech, but all that was lost in the fear of failure and rejection. On the question of not providing relevant information about Qatar Foundation, the fact that I stated the achievements of Foundation quite broadly was because I couldn’t recollect the information out of fear. The fear that I would stammer something inconsequential made me play the safe game of disclosing general information about the Qatar Foundation. This affected the effectiveness of my speech, and it showed in the way my colleague has addressed this. While I did mention the projects that the Foundation managed to do successfully, I couldn’t support the view with examples. Like I said, I had everything on my fingertips, but I just couldn’t bring myself to say them, as a result of which, the speech looked monotonous and frail.
I also did talk about the vision the Foundation had to revolutionize education by 2030, but couldn’t elaborate on it for want of more information. All I could explain was talk about the level of elementary, middle, and high schools that the Foundation covered. Even though i was tense and nervous, I never showed it, and this was the reason why my colleague credits me for being relaxed and confident before the audience. Having sais so much about my shortcomings, I now know where I stand as far as my public speaking abilities are concerned and what needs to be done to improve it. It would serve me better to record and replay my voice and understand where I need to make the improvements. I also know that I have to be more open and talk to people so that I can overcome the accent and pronunciation problems I have. It will also serve me better if I stood in front of a mirror and practiced speeches, so that I can correct my posture and inject a little bit of life into my body movements. I have overcome the initial stage to overcoming stage fear, and I really need to thank my classmates for having given me a quite hearing. If not for them, I wouldn’t have completed my presentation at all. They were very supportive, and I need to thank each one of them for being so accommodative.
Conclusion
During my presentation I did mention that I had planned to attend the Qatar Foundation, but was refused a seat because of my low score in the English placement exam and at the time. I guess our lifestyle is very different from that of Americans and that is why I am a shy person. I am confident though, that given my time here, I will be able to change that and become proactive. As my colleague rightly said, once I do overcome the problems I have, I will be able to engage my audience in high-octane sessions. It is going to take time and a lot of effort, but I am sure that I will reach that point someday. It’s true that my upbringing is the cause for my embarrassment, but once I move closer to people here, I will learn a lot of new things, and become bolder and confident. The time has come for me to become an extrovert, and I’m going to spare no pain to achieving my dream.
