Specific Public Speaking Fears

Type of Fear Percent Reporting

Trembling or shaking 80%

Mind going blank 74%

Doing or saying something embarrassing 64%

Unable to continue talking 63%

Not making sense 59%

Sounding foolish 59%

Figure 2.3

As a homework assignment, ask

students to identify the specific

fears they have about public

speaking. Collate their responses,

and compare them with the list

in Figure 2.3.

Public Speaking, Eighth Edition, by Michael Osborn, Suzanne Osborn and Randall Osborn. Published by Allyn & Bacon.

Copyright © 2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Chapter 2 Managing Your Fear of Speaking 35

they had planned to say something or what they intended to say next. Back in high

school, you might have had to memorize a passage to recite in class the Gettysburg

Address, a scene from Shakespeare, or a poem and you may have drawn a

blank during your performance. It was probably traumatic standing in front of a

class full of adolescents who just couldn t wait to tease you about it. Your college

classroom audience will be more forgiving, but having your mind go blank is one

of the major pitfalls of memorized presentations. It is one of the reasons that we

do not recommend memorizing your speeches (see modes of presentation in

Chapter 13).

An effective speech is presented extemporaneously prepared and practiced but

not written out and memorized. If you practice your speech using a key-word outline

and keep the outline handy as you present your speech, drawing a blank should

not be a major problem for you. If after all this, you do experience one of those rare

moments when you simply can t remember what to say next, rephrase what you

have just said. Audiences expect summaries in speeches, and going back over your

material should help get you back on track.

Even if you don t say exactly what you had planned to say exactly as you had

planned to say it, the audience won t know it unless you tell them.

Embarrassing Yourself. Whenever you speak before a group, you are putting

yourself in the spotlight. The spotlight is bright and all eyes are on you. One of

our students brought home the meaning of being in the spotlight to us. She was a

cheerleader at Indiana University. One day she came into our office to ask for advice

on controlling her communication anxiety. You re nervous about speaking to

twenty students! we exclaimed. Why, every weekend you re out there in front of

sixty thousand people in the stadium! That s different, she replied. Out there,

Im not really in the spotlight. Those sixty thousand fans are focused on the game. In

this class, the twenty students are focused on me.

What can you possibly do during a speech that would be all that embarrassing?

Tremble in front of people? we ve already discussed that. Forget how you

planned to say something? no big deal. Mispronounce big words or technical

terms? look them up ahead of time. Flub a word? everyone misuses or mispronounces

a word from time to time. Save being embarrassed for the truly ludicrous

things that might happen in your life, and keep in mind that you will survive even

those.

The first class one of your authors ever taught in college was a large lecture

class held in a large auditorium. During the first exam, a student asked her to

cut off the air conditioners that were making a racket. She shut off the air conditioner

on one side of the stage and was walking across to the other side, not

looking where she was going, and tripped over the base of the free-standing

chalkboard, falling flat on her face in front of 250 students.

Now, that s embarrassing, especially for a first-time teaching assistant. She

was praying there d be a trap door she could fall through, but of course there

wasn t. To her amazement, however, no one was laughing. The expressions on

the faces she could see were ones of concern. She picked herself up, brushed

the dirt off her clothes, and muttered something like, Grace is my middle

name! The students looks changed from concern to relief when they realized

she wasn t hurt. To her everlasting surprise, the sun rose as usual the next

morning. And regardless of how embarrassed she had felt, she had to show up

for the next class.

ESL: Ask your ESL students to

share what speakers in their

culture might find especially

embarrassing.

Public Speaking, Eighth Edition, by Michael Osborn, Suzanne Osborn and Randall Osborn. Published by Allyn & Bacon.

Copyright © 2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.

36 Part One The Foundations of Public Speaking

Chances are, nothing like this will happen to you in your public speaking class,

but if it does, you will survive it, and you may be even stronger because of it.

Unable to Continue Talking. Although almost two-thirds of the people in

the general population survey mentioned the inability to continue talking as a specific

concern, it very rarely happens even to the most anxious of students.

On very, very rare occasions, a student may experience a panic attack. You re

going along presenting your speech, everything is going well, when you suddenly

feel overwhelmed with fear for no apparent reason. Not only are you afraid, but you

also realize that the fear is irrational, and you think perhaps you re losing it. You

really want to drop your notes and bolt for the door.

Don t do it! Decide to weather the storm. Mark Twain once said, Courage is

resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. A panic attack is usually

short. It may last only a few seconds (although it may feel as though it s going on

forever). Keep talking. Look for the friendliest face in the audience and direct your

words to that person. Accept your fear for what it is, a temporary aberration. It will

probably never happen again, but if you are worried about it, schedule an appointment

with your instructor to discuss it.

Making No Sense and Sounding Foolish. Most speakers who don t

make sense and who sound foolish do so because they have not adequately prepared

for their presentations. The remainder of this book is devoted to helping you

prepare and present speeches that do make sense and sound intelligent. You will

learn how to analyze your listeners and how to adapt your messages to their needs

and interests. You will learn how to gain responsible knowledge through research

and how to use this material to support your ideas. You will learn how to structure

and organize your messages clearly and how to use oral language effectively. All of

this information will help ensure that you make sense and don t sound foolish.

On the other hand, if you take your assignments lightly, don t adequately prepare,

and don t practice for your presentations, you ve earned the right to be anxious

and to suffer the consequences.

Negative Consequences. Anticipating negative results was an important concern

of the students who were surveyed but not with the general population group.

For students, the negative consequences were typically related to the grade they might

receive on the speaking assignment (yet students who insist that they are most concerned

about their grade are typically just as anxious when making ungraded presentations).

Although grades may seem like a rational cause for concern, worrying about

them diverts your focus from what should be your main concern.

If you prepare your speeches solely for the purpose of making a good grade,

you are not going to be a very successful speaker. Your main purpose for speaking must

be to communicate something to your audience to provide them with new, interesting,

or useful information or to convince them to change their ways of thinking or

behaving.

Presentation Anxiety

Presentation anxiety is the discomfort you may feel while actually giving a speech.

How much anxiety you experience as you present your speech is related to how

much anticipatory anxiety you build up ahead of time. If you can keep your prespeech

anxiety under control, you will feel better as you give your speech.

presentation anxiety The fear reactions

that occur during the presentation

of a speech.

Public Speaking, Eighth Edition, by Michael Osborn, Suzanne Osborn and Randall Osborn. Published by Allyn & Bacon.

Copyright © 2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Chapter 2 Managing Your Fear of Speaking 37

You will probably be most nervous when you first start to speak.12 Then, as you

get used to the situation, you should gain confidence. Research shows that as you

get into the presentation of your speech, your nervousness diminishes. Prepare your

introduction carefully, and practice it until it flows easily. Keep your focus on what

you want to communicate to your audience.

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 885