Week 4

Nonverbal communication is very easily misunderstood and is difficult to read. There are many different ways to communicate non verbally that get misunderstood. One example of that is by crossing your arms. Crossing your arms can mean many different things in many different situations. I can simply mean that your cold and you cross your arms for warmth. But people may interpret that in a different way. Crossing your arms may signify that your trying to give space between you and someone else who is in your “bubble” that you are uncomfortable with. It can also mean that a person is annoyed or bored and they cross their arms. There really is no correct way to use this body language It depends on the situation to know if it is appropriate or not. If you were listening to a boss give you instructions to do something, crossing your arms (even if your cold) probably wouldn’t send the right symbol to the boss and he might find it rude.

The person who has the information has the power. This is true because they are the ones knowledgeable in that situation and they can control how the information is shared. When anyone is giving a speech they have the information and that gives them the power. When the president gives a speech like the presidential address, they have the power and the information. Most of the time when I am giving speeches and stuff I don’t feel like I have very much power, I feel as though everyone is staring and judging me and if feel like the underdog in most of those situations. I hope to stop feeling this way, and hopefully ill feel the power when I give speeches. Does anyone else feel like they are the “underdog” when giving speeches?

Week 3

There have probably been many times when I have spoken to people about something important and I could tell they weren’t listening. It is frustrating at times because you know what your saying is important and they just blow it off. It sometimes happens when I am telling a friend story about something that happened, and it also happens a lot when I am babysitting and I am trying to tell the child to do something or stop doing something and they just don’t listen. When I am talking to a friend I can usually tell when they don’t care and aren’t listening because they either look really bored or they are doing something else while you are talking to them like texting or looking at their nails or just staring into space. Usually if this happens I just stop my story or whatever I am trying to say and I just move on to something else. It is frustrating and kind of disappointing sometimes but then again I think that I probably do the same thing when I don’t care what the person is saying to me. I should try to be more of an attentive listener and try to listen to people better because I know how it feels to be ignored or just tuned out and I should try not to make other people feel that way.

In high school I had a teacher that was very disorganized during his lectures. He would start off by talking about a subject and he would go off topic so much that I could never follow along. He was a science teacher, so I remember one time we were talking about animal cells at the start of class and by the end of class we were talking about trees. That class was so hard to keep up with and take notes and it seemed like everyone in that class was as confused as I was. If I could go back and give the teacher some advice id tell them to not go off on random tangents and stay on task and organize the lesson outline better.

Week 2

I cannot recall a time when I’ve been to a speech and the speaker didn’t connect with the audience. But that is probably because I didn’t connect with the speaker, so I didn’t remember the speech or care to even try to remember. I can image how I would feel as an audience member though. I would feel not important and I would probably be very bored. I wouldn’t care about the speech and I would probably start day dreaming. It would be very frustrating to understand what the speaker is trying to tell the audience. When I give my speeches hopefully I’ll be able to keep the audience interested in what I’m trying to say and hopefully connect with them. I’ll analyze the audience and make sure what I’m speaking about relates to them and hope they have some interest in what I’m talking about. Also, I’ll emphasize words and phrases so the speech doesn’t sound monotone and boring.

Presentations I’ve heard in the past that really caught my attention and were ones that I remember are speeches where there were a lot of different voice changes, and the speaker changed up the way they spoke. They also used hand jesters and really got into their speech and spoke well. The speeches that were boring were the ones where the speaker stands up front and just speaks with a monotone boring voice and has nothing interesting to talk about and doesn’t move a muscle while speaking. It’s frustrating and very boring, so I hope I’ll be able to speak well and not boring to many people with my speeches this semester.

Week 1

Communication is very important in everybody's life and we use it constantly every single day. Everybody needs to know how to communicate effectively and I think that is why we have it as a requirement for every degree program. I use communication all the time every single day. Throughout the day I talk face to face with a bunch of people, when I sit in class I communicate with the professor and the other students in the class by listening and participating in class. throughout the day i text friends I don't get to see all the time, as well as friends I see all the time but have something I need to tell them. After I take this class I hope I can better my communication skills. I hope to have less of a fear to speak in front of groups of people. Right now my communication apprehension is very high and I hope I can reduce that.

When I think back to an embarrassing moment in my life, many come to mind. But after awhile it doesn’t seem to be that embarrassing anymore and my life goes on. Right now speaking in front of people is like an embarrassing moment for me, but hopefully after this class I won’t be as embarrassed to express my opinion in groups or speak in front of class. When someone is embarrassed, usually they think there life is over and everyone noticed what happened and everyone will make fun of them. Usually that isn’t the case. Most of the time people don’t even notice when something goes wrong and that is especially true when giving a speech. When you know you messed up, people don’t seem to usually catch it so it’s not that bad