Creating Speech as Juicy as Peach

First of all, this is not going to be a recipe on how to make a certain kind of food. Yet, it is just a simple thought or if appropriate to be called a guidance on how to deliver a speech especially an English speech. The reason why I wrote this, is because last month I got this chance of delivering a speech. I felt so bad thar I haven’t practiced for years. Then I thought, the best speech is the one that can be as juicy as peach. If you want to know why I peak the analogy of peach, it is because peach is very juicy and my favorite one. 

I have been missing this sort of activities and challenges during my old days both in the middle and high school years. I haven’t got any chance to practice any in my college. I don’t know why the more people bring up my background, take me differently, or expect to me differently make myself become a reserved person. I know this is not right. I just don’t know how to change people’s mindset and even my own mindset that it is not nice to be treated or seen as a different kind of person.

Anyway, that big day finally came. I regretted in my life that after graduating and leaving Pedes (the high school debate club) I didn’t practice and improve my public speaking enough. So, I think I didn’t do well during my speech in the multimedia room of the central building last month. I was perhaps too nervous speaking in front of the CEOs, managers, vice rector, staff, and the fellow students. At least, I was the last speaker to represent the students and it makes it even worse. Well, certainly people couldn’t wait for the lunch and they were just tired to listen more speeches. Anyway, I hope it wasn’t too bad. But, it makes me feel happy, when Mr. Mitsuki knows Totto Chan, it is my favorite children book about education in Japan. He laughed really hard when I told him something I remembered about Japan from my childhood is a book called Totto Chan. 

Just later after that big day, an old friend of mine sent me a text message asking me to send some of the speech writings I have done during high school for her cousin who is going for a speech contest. Then, lately, I saw the documentation of our president speaking in the APEC Conference as well. Despite all the controversies over his speech, I would say that speech is an important skill that thankfully can be learned by anyone. So, I decided that I wanted to share some thoughts on this matter of delivering a speech.

Practicing is the first key to create a speech as juicy as peach. There is this saying goes, “Practice makes perfect.” It was honestly very hard for me to restart everything over. After this stagnant time and long break of practice. I miss this little girl who did her first speech in her freshman year in the middle school during Porseni so bravely, I miss this little girl talking about education, the achievement of Indonesia in the education, how to prevent drug abuse, and so on and so forth, with a high pride and optimism even if she had to face those university students meanwhile she was only a high school. I miss this faith, arousal, and belief that always move her inner self out. Even she was not the best speaker in the team, it was good when her team mates telling her that the best thing about being a team with her is that she has been the lucky maker. Since she was the only girl in the team, it means a lot to be thanked as the lucky maker of the team. Well there is no such a lucky maker but there can be miracles when you believe. Because He will answer anything just when we believe in it. It is always true.

How do I practice? Some freshmen had some consultation about life in college beginning of this school year. Like how to cope with all the books, how to improve English skill. This is what people always say: I feel ashamed. I am not good at speaking English. I am afraid people will laugh at me. No worries. I was. The only thing that pushed me hard to study English at that time was that I was trapped in a Bilingual class--the first in Indonesia to use English and Bahasa Indonesia in the learning of Math and Science. I got 2.5 in my Physics class because I wasn’t good at understanding the class and I had figured out that I was committed myopia for the first time. That free fall experience moved me to learn and to understand English better so that I could make it a hundred for the following test. It is publicly known that I always bring a huge bag. People always comment on this. So, actually I am accustomed with it. I didn’t have alfalink until now, so I used to bring a very thick dictionary recommended by the teacher anywhere, it is John Echol’ something... Also, I made my own little dictionary. I don’t care about people’s comment on my bag, except I care about my health, my back bone, hehe. So, if you think you want to learn vocabs more easily bring with you a pocket of Oxford dictionary (the mini size is so nice) or perhaps electronic dictionary. Then, write down any new words in your own little dictionary.

It was my experience to love English and Physics so much. In learning Accounting, well, since it is still on my way, I would keep the story for some other time. Hopefully, there will be some chances to share good motivating things about it. I struggled a lot. It is totally new strange world. However, I remember Theresa Sings, an exchange student from Passau-Germay studying at this faculty, whom I met during a seminar in Djarum Hall, she was surprised about students here. She asked me how come I studied something that I don’t enjoy. I know this is crazy but I feel jealous for people in Germany who can freely take higher education. They don’t have to pay tuition so that they can change their study plans as they wish. She said, how do you love something that you don’t like, how come you just follow what your parents say? Well, I try hard to keep telling myself, it is what is called love. It is because of love that we do something even a single thing that we don’t love doing. So, remind me please, when I feel like I am losing all the hopes.

The first person to practice speaking English with is yourself. Don’t you think I am crazy? Yes, it is ok to feel like a mad as long as it is helping you to learn. If you hesitate to start it with people start it with yourself. I am a kind of person who like talking to myself when no body’s around. Well, sounds weird. But it is true. I was a very shy person-until now. I could only practice my English in the class and I have no one whom I can practice with at home. So, I started practicing with my self, the radio, tape, and the music. I love reading and playing as the characters in the stories. So, I started reading everything in English loudly by my own. I started talking to myself in English when I was sad, happy, or angry, Sometimes when you see yourself in the mirror, encourage yourself in English is a good way to motivate. Yet, be aware of the surroundings when people start noticing your weird manner don’t worry just tell them you are practicing. Then, the next person, would be anyone around you. It could be your sister, your mom, your friend, or your teacher. However, it sometimes feel awkward to speak in Englsih with your family when they don’t really speak English. So, be a hunter. I used to go to Malioboro and approached the tourists and shared anything with them. They were mostly welcome and happy especially when they need help with direction and other stuff. Trust me, speaking in the language other than your language is one of the reasons that foreign tourists will really admire and respect you. There could be funny experiences you found. It sometimes happen. Once there was this fight between the pedicab driver (tukang becak for I am not sure with my english for this term) and the tourists on how much the cost, they thought 20,000 was too high since they usually used dollars. There would be more fun stories to find.

Anyway, delivering a speech is a way of influencing the audience to get into your messages. It is not easy especially that people love talking themselves rather listening to others’ speaking. For me, it is hard for me because I love writing more than speaking. Besides, I naturally don’t like to debate with people simply because everyone has one’s own belief and I don’t like to interfere. But, debating is something important in life in ways to grow mature, to be able to learn our opponents and make the best decision through it. Thus, we want to make our speech leave good impression at the very first time. Good opening is a good start. My favorite opening when I did the speech or everytime I did a contest was this: 

In the name of Allah. The Beneficent The Merciful. Praise be to Allah. Lord of the worlds. The Knower of all things. My Lord, increase me in knowledge.

I always start my speech with this powerful words. It doesn’t have to be like this one. You may use a popular quote, a poetry, or even a song. It is a good thing to create an icebreaker as well.

The next thing to consider is that it is always harder at the beginning because it is harder to start saying something. During this critical time, be sure to take a deep breath and look over the audience. Mr. Tri Kartika, my first mentor, who is my dad’s good friend and later is my high school friend’s dad (Ninda’s) as well, telling me that I have to look over the audience before starting to gain their attention. He said, “If you are afraid to look at their eyes, look at their forehead. Just to pretend you are looking at them straightly.” It worked actually to build a strength and rapport (trust and invisible relationship) with the audience.

The first time I did speech contest, I was amazed. What I did was to listen and observe other contestants. I observed the ways others bring their speeches. In business, you call this strategy as bench-marking. You do benchmarking to learn the best practice of your competitors in order to be better. So, there was this girl having an excellent accent who delivered a speech with high intonation in some parts, clear conjunction and coherent speech, and enchanting song. I was admired. She was a year older than me. So, the next time I competed, I benchmarked her strategy. I brought up a story, a song, and/or a poetry to make my speech more interesting.

The next thing to do is sign posting. This message is from my high school debating coach, mas Zaka. I don’t know where he is now but he is one of my important teachers although he used to bully me and the kids a lot. I remembered we exercised speaking on Yos Sudarso road. Whenever people and the vehicles came across, they would think we were crazy students talking to ourselves across the busy road. Anyway, sign posting means you put the contents of the speech in a systematic manner. Make the points clear and highlights. So, for example, the motion of the debate is this house believes that students should be given freedom to take any courses they are interested in. Instead of saying, I have many reasons why it is the freedom of the students to take courses that they like, it is better to say it clearly as: I have three main reasons why students should have the freedom of choosing courses that they like. First, ... Second,... Third... The conjunction to keep coherent and cohesive speech is to keep the right conjunction such as therefore, nevertheless, unfortunately, and so on. 

Logical thinking is an important thing in delivering both speech and debate. I love learning the fallacies in order to understand how to make a logical thinking. One funny way of learning the logical fallacies is through reading the short story called “Love is Fallacy.” Ms. Dohe was the one who introduced me to this funny story. If you are any interested you can type and search for yourself. It is a fun way of learning those difficult terms. I do remember our coach-mas Zaka kept telling the team not to make a tautological argument which is an argument with circular reasoning. So, it doesn’t have a basic reason and it just keeps going round and round. So, for instance, this house believes that should human should never leave the planet earth because everyone live upon the earth. This type of reasoning will be tautological.

Hmmm... What else should be important? I could not remember anything else except manner and expression. So, whatever happens keep the manner and expression as desire. Be aware with the err... What.. Emm.. Those are fillers and sometimes are annoying. Instead, you can pause for a second or say something that you forget the word by its synonym or description. Last but not least, keep practicing!

Picture: http://fruits-vegetables-benefits.blogspot.com/2013/03/health-benefits-of-peaches.html