Oral ''PRESENTATION''

[HawthornM8]

Hi,

Unfortunately I have my oral presentation tomorrow at 7:30AM. I will have finished writing it in about an hour and I'll run through 1-2 practices to ensure I fit within the 5-8 minute bracket. However, I'm worried that I'm going to do really badly with the presentation.

Last time I did an oral presentation of this type in Year 11, I read straight off paper, made eye contact with the wall behind everyone a handful of times and this was alright. Although I'm not really nervous in my head, I must be subconsciously - last time I did this speech my legs were shaking a lot which made me have a bit of anxiety as to what people were thinking about me and my legs shaking, when in reality nobody even realised.

Tomorrow I'll be in the same room as I had it last year with the aforementioned experience. There will be 10 guys in the same position as me and two teachers assessing me. When I think about it in my head, I think that it is 5-8 minutes of something I just have to get out of the way regardless of what I look like and that I could absolutely kill it, getting fully into it, projecting my voice and having a good time. But I think I'm just sheltering myself from reality a little bit.

If I were to be behind a lectern I would be absolutely fine because I could hold onto something, have my legs shake all I want etc. But I'll be behind some skinny music stand with my speech sitting on it so I'm just a little bit worried as to how I should overcome this barrier that *most* people are probably experiencing? 

[anthony99]

As long as you feel confident in your material (I.e Logical argument, cohesive structure and realistic thesis) than it should not be daunting to stand in front of people and argue your point. Remember, all you are doing is arguing an issue (because it is persuasive).

Now how do you actually find confidence in your material? Easy:
1) Read over and tweak your thesis (main argument) until it sounds logical and appealing. Appeal is important here because you are trying to be persuasive. Try a less extreme stance but not quite middle ground. Also make sure it is not ambiguous, but specific and practical. I.e do not say "Cigarettes should be illegal" but rather explain which laws need to be changed (or suggest a law to be passed) or explain how your idea may be implemented in practice. For example; "For people born after 1995, cigarette purchases are illegal and for everyone else, a maximum of one container of 20mg tobacco can be  purchased per transaction. An extra 15% levy on nicotine except in vaporiser form (and you can have an argument about health being promoted for those who will inevitably still be addicted to nicotine). The point of all that is to say BE SPECIFIC IN WHAT MUST BE DONE AND WHY. This way you will know that your argument is not only strong but also plausible and convincing (Because you can back it up in a practical sense).
2) Practice, practice, practice.
3)Don't focus on BS such as what others think and how your voice sounds. As long as step 1 is done well, and then you have practiced it enough, you should be confident enough to not have to worry about all the little things that can go wrong.
4) If all else fails, leave the country and flee abroad. Maybe Indonesia.  You could also be a people smuggler. Hell, Abbott might even buy your boat off you when you decide to retire from the people smuggling game.

So good luck in either nailing you presentation or your people smuggling operations.

[literally lauren]

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PICTURE ANYONE NAKED.
Ahem.
It sounds cliche but concentrate on breathing. I had similar troubles, I could write a decent speech but my nerves got the better of me every time. My hands shook like a hypothermia victim and my throat was as dry as the humour I attempted.
Making sure my speech flowed definitely helped. If as you're reading through it (preferable aloud) there are words or phrases you stumble over or have to think twice about, cut them and replace with a more natural expression.
I also relied too heavily on pre-written speeches transferred to cue cards, so I made sure I put in something to break it up. I don't know what suits your topic, but I had an anecdote that I had scripted meticulously, but wrote it in colloquial language so that I could memorise it and then make it seem like improv.
An age-old solution is to get some friends in your class stationed in different corners of the rom so that you can look between the two/ three of them. Even if you don't know anyone too well, if any of the other guys are feeling similarly nervous, arrange with them to be each other's eye contact buddies.
As Anthony said, knowing your material inside out is the most important part. If you are utilising the cue cards, put a couple of asterisks to remind you to look up. Do this while you're practicing aloud and it'll become almost subconscious.
Worst case scenario you'll get below average marks for the "presentation" part, then you can rely on content marks to get you through this SAC, and earn back marks throughout the year. The oral is usually only worth 10% of Unit 3, so a mediocre mark won't hurt you too much.
I never found out the exact score for my oral but it wasn't spectacular. In fact I pretty much botched the SAC after that as well. But it gave me incentive to ace the next few. Worked out alright for me    
You'll be fine!
Or seek asylum. Whatever floats your boat... sorry poor choice of words..

[literally lauren]

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PICTURE ANYONE NAKED.
Ahem.
It sounds cliche but concentrate on breathing. I had similar troubles, I could write a decent speech but my nerves got the better of me every time. My hands shook like a hypothermia victim and my throat was as dry as the humour I attempted.
Making sure my speech flowed definitely helped. If as you're reading through it (preferable aloud) there are words or phrases you stumble over or have to think twice about, cut them and replace with a more natural expression.
I also relied too heavily on pre-written speeches transferred to cue cards, so I made sure I put in something to break it up. I don't know what suits your topic, but I had an anecdote that I had scripted meticulously, but wrote it in colloquial language so that I could memorise it and then make it seem like improv.
An age-old solution is to get some friends in your class stationed in different corners of the room so that you can look between the two/ three of them. Even if you don't know anyone too well, if any of the other guys are feeling similarly nervous, arrange with them to be each other's eye contact buddies.
As Anthony said, knowing your material inside out is the most important part. If you are utilising the cue cards, put a couple of asterisks to remind you to look up. Do this while you're practicing aloud and it'll become almost subconscious.
Worst case scenario you'll get below average marks for the "presentation" part, then you can rely on content marks to get you through this SAC, and earn back marks throughout the year. The oral is usually only worth 10% of Unit 3, so a mediocre mark won't hurt you too much.
I never found out the exact score for my oral but it wasn't spectacular. In fact I pretty much botched the SAC after that as well. But it gave me incentive to ace the next few. Worked out alright for me    
You'll be fine!
Or seek asylum. Whatever floats your boat... sorry poor choice of words..

[brenden]

One of the best methods to hide your nerves is to move. My legs used to shake, same as my hands, even though any person in a room with me speaking would say they thought I was the most confident speaker they've ever seen. If your hands are shaking and your legs are jiggling, don't stand still; it will just make things more obvious. Walk around with a purpose. Not because you're a good speaker, but because if your legs are moving, no one can see them shake, and you know that no one can see them shake, so you're less nervous anyway .

It might be worth doing a brief research on the fight/flight response in your nervous system. For example, I find it very helpful to know that your digestive system shuts down when you're in fight/flight, which is the butterflies you feel in your stomach around a speech (not saying all butterflies mean you're in FF response). Your mouth goes dry because your saliva production decreases - no one needs to spit at a predator thousands of years ago. And it's also controllable - with the breathing mentioned ^^^ above, and through moving around.

[vox nihili]

My strength with public speaking has always been presentation more so than writing. With that said though, I still get nervous as all hell.

What I do is I take a long walk out and collect myself. Then I find my feet on the floor. I angle them out a bit, wide stance, and plant them there. I tend not to move from that spot and you really probably shouldn't—walking around is a bad habit to get into and can create a visual distraction. You can still jiggle your toes though, that I find helps and others have suggested the same. Then once you've planted your feet, take a deep breath, get used to where you are, survey the room a bit and then start when you're ready. Just psych yourself up, get your confidence up. That position is a confident position. So feet planted, deep breath, stand tall and then you'll be ready to speak. After the first few sentences, you'll be right as rain.

[literally lauren]

^So basically, no one's a truly confident speaker. It may seem natural for some, but almost everyone has to get through the crippling self-doubt and maybe-I-could-just-emigrate mentality. Teachers will take this into account; they know how difficult it can be and they tend not to penalise palpable nervousness too heavily unless it distracts from your speech.

From memory a couple of my cards had more reminders to act natural than actual speech. I'd done the memorisation, so I wrote stuff like 'longer pause, breathe' 'LOOK UP' 'crescendo' 'sarcastic tone here' Sounds puerile but it was like a security blanket on the day