Danielle+Foster's+Journal+Page

__**-December 3,2010**__ This semester of speech has been a great experience for me. I learned the importance of walking into a lecture with good listening, and how it makes concentrating on your speaker much easier. Also learned how to write a speec outline which completely comfused be at first with th whol no ones without twos ordeal, but now i completely understand. I also learned that I am capable of making an effective speech. After my last speech I had many people tell me how effective and good they thought it was. Speech was very stressful for me, but it's something I'm really glad I did. This class is going to better prepare me for college and careers. I really enjoyed the class, and the activities we did. Plus all of our discussions were fun, I don't believe there was really ever a boring day in class. I also enjoyed listening to everyone's speeches, they all taught me alot of things I never would have even thought about.

Thank you Mrs.James for teaching me and my classmates that we are all capable of making a great speech. (: ==

__**-November 5, 2010**__ I feel like I improved drastically from first speech to my last. My first speech I went up there literally shaking with fear, and by my last speech I was much calmer and could focus easier. I was still super nervous, but I had learned that being nervous just causes me to forget what I'm going to say. Also I found out that I really need to practice my speech so I know if it will fit in the time limit. My first speech I practiced alot and made it in the time period, but for my second speech i didn't practice as much cause I felt I would make it in the time limit because i had before; I ended up being around 2 minutes under the minimum time. So that taught me to practice my speeches more. I also learned to talk naturally when I'm up there. The first speech I was trying to use all these big words so that I'd sound smarter, it ended up back firing bbecause I focused so much remembering to say these big words, that I forgot many main parts of my speech. During my last speech I used words that i use everyday, and wasn't trying to sound smarter just by using elaborate words.

__**-October 22, 2010**__ In the first video, the lady demonstrated great uses of her visual aid. She pointed to the pictures while talking about them, which helped the audience to visualize what she was saying, and she did this while keeping eye contact. The second video showed bad examples of using a visual aid. The lady seemed confused and kept having to look at her visual aid instead of keeping eye contact with her audience, this displayed her lack of practice with her visual aid. These videos helped me understand that if i use a visual aid i need to practice with it so i ca maintain eye contact with my audience and not look lost.

I believe Mrs.James cares so much about plagarism because of two reasons; one being that it's illegal and two because she doesn't believe taking credit for someone else's work is right. She has informed us of the consequences of plagarism and has made it clear that she expects us not to plagarise. Ways to avoid being used in a future example is simple, cite where you found all your information and give the author credit for it, in your outline and speech. If you do these simple things, you can easily avoid being used as one of Mrs. James future examples.
 * __-October 15, 2010__**

__**-September 17, 2010**__ Demonstrating good listening involves both concentrating and thinking. Sometimes there is a barrier that interferes with your concentration on what you are listening to, but there are simple ways to avoid those barriers. External noise is noises both inside and outside the listening room. Coughing, footsteps, and street noises are examples of external noises that make is difficult for a listener to pay attention to a speaker. Listeners can avoid such distractions by arriving early enough to a speech or lecture to get a seat close to the speaker. Another barrier to good listening is fatigue, if you come into a lecture and you're tired too much studying or partying from the night before you're going to find it difficult to focus on what the speaker has to say. Faking attention is a technique that many learned to do at an early age, and this habit many of us often have keeps up from fully focusing on what the speaker is telling us. I don't know how many classes and lectures I have been in where I sit forward in my desk with an interested expression on my face, yet I don't remember a thin the teacher said to me by the time I walk out of the room. When communicating with someone one-on-one you would more than likely show more interest, if you're friend needed advice on something, you could not answer her if you haven't been paying attention. With a group speaker you don't necessarily have to pay attention, you can easily fake it due to th fact that thespeaker is not likely to personally ask you a question. Communicating one-on-one and talking and a group also have their similarities. With both forms you need to be respectful to the speaker and only talk when it is your turn to talk. If you were talking to your mother you wouldn't interupt her because it's rude and disrepectful. Same rules apply for communicating in a group, if you're listening to teacher or professor speak you would'nt just get up and walk out of the room. Why? Because just like interupting your mom, it's disrespectful.

__**-September 3, 2010**__ My group used the preperation time wisely. We started brainstorming with ideas about what wouldn't work and what would. None of us in my group really butted heads, we all just went along with the idea we felt would work best. I'm glad we dicided on a good building process because it made the constructing of the tower easier. We didn't come up with a bad building process so we didnt have to waste time trying to build a tower that wasnt going to meet the requirements. Another reason the building process of our tower went smoothly is because none of my group members had any misunderstands; everyone got along and was courteous of one another's ideas. This helped us in our building since we did not have to take any time out of building our tower due to misunderstandings. This activity could help you in writing a speech because it demonstrates that you have to take time to think through what you want to incorporate into your speech, and that if you procrastinate too long you will end up throwing your speech together and in the end it won't be nearly as good as it could've been.