This Tuesday, I managed to have a speech on international friendship to commemorate international friendship day in school. This was after weeks of preparation with Ms Tay, the teacher in charge of my presentation.

Earlier this year, I signed up to be the speaker for this morning story, and was excited to have the chance on presenting on stage. As it was my first presentation in school, I felt stressed on how well it is going to go.

In preparation for the morning story, I created a draft on the speech. After a few edits by Ms Tay, and discussions we had together, we finally managed to create a script that we were satisfied in.

After creating the script, it was time to make the slides. Similarly, I created a draft on the slides, before Ms Tay took over and made the final draft.

Practice

Although the script is quite long, I managed to practice the whole thing and memorise the script. However, during the many meetings I had with Ms Tay, I learnt that emotion and articulation were some of the improvements I had to make. As the day I have to present come nearer, I became more stressed, but continued to practice a lot and find ways I can improve.

Thankfully, Ms Tay encouraged me along the way, and I was able to improve drastically, through the meetings we had.

Presentation Day

On the day of the presentation, I reminded myself on the things I have to work on. On the final rehearsal in the morning, we recapped on the things I should take note on during the presentation.

It was time for my presentation…

As I walked on stage and took the mic, I started the presentation well. However, I was a little distracted by the audience, which has been something I have to work on since young. However, I managed to complete the presentation, though being a little too fast. I also needed to pause on certain occasions because I had to recall what I have to say next.

After the presentation, I felt relieved, and thankful for Ms Tay, as she spent a lot of time vetting my slides. I was satisfied as I did my best, and learnt many things.

Things to take note on future presentations:

– Stress

Stress on important words is important, and if we are conveying any feelings, we have to sound like the emotion we want to convey. For example, if we are going to explain a disappointing situation, we must sound disappointed. This leads to my next point, which is emotions.

– Emotions

We have to capture the attention of the audience, and this could be done through emotions, which would allow our audience to relate to us.

– Practice

Instead of memorising the whole script, we can memorise the key words, and it is not a must to follow the script wholeheartedly.

I look forward to future opportunities for public speaking!

Video of speech: