Perceptions of words

Thinking back to a time that i said something that I didn't meant to be taken the receiver took it was last year in high school. I was going to class and one of my good friends who was a girl was walking to in and I said she looked tired. Meaning that she looked like she would rather be sleeping. But supposedly when you tell a girl that they look tired that it means that look bad; not they look like they would rather be sleeping. Luckily one of our mutual friends that was walking with me told me what girls perceive looking tired meant. So I was able to apologize and try to back track with what I said. Once I knew what her meaning of tired meant I felt bad and did not mean to make it sound that way. Luckily she was not that mad at me and we later joked about it but I learned a few things that day about the way that men and woman give different meanings to words and the context that these words are used. So since that point I make sure that I never tell a girl that she looks tired because they may perceive it differently from the way that I mean it. So I think that it is important that we watch what we say and say it in the right context so someone will not take what we say and think it means something else.

Do you stay mad at some one if they tell you something and they did not mean it, the way that you took it, if they apologize about it?

Perceived and presenting selfs

I believe that my perceived self is pretty close to my presenting self. Differences I can be shy if I don't feel comfortable in a situation or don't someone, but someone who doesn't know me may think that I am stuck up and too cool for them when i am really just shy. When I give a speech I feel that I am not very good at speaking in front of people and I always think that I did really bad, but when I ask people how I did they say that I did really well which is completely different from what i thought. I see myself as not as smart as my siblings which makes me feel bad but I am pretty sure that my parents do not see this and they think that I am just as smart. Similarities I see myself as confident in myself. I believe others see this is well. I also see myself as willing to help anyone that needs help. I also see myself as a good student who gets his work done on time and do the best that I can. I hope that others see this same quality in me when they look at me. I see myself as a good honest friend and I hope my friends would see this same quality in me as well.

The way that I present myself in public is the way that I see myself.

Do you believe that there are more things that there are more similarities in your perceived self and presenting self or differences between the two.

Perceptions

I believe that cultural backgrounds help to influence everyone's perceptions about many different things. My family has helped to influence a lot of the way that I think and act. So for me, I was raised in a very active Christian family so with this it was expected of me to be involved in church and with this I have been. With this I have had different beliefs and ideas when it comes to certain aspect in the world than someone who might not be a Christian. But since I have come to college I have been more excepting of different types of people as well as different groups of people. This is partly because I grew up in Northern Wisconsin so with this there were very few people of a different ethnic background then me. So with this I didn’t know much about them so I was able to be easily influence by the media and others around me. But now that I have been around people who are different from me I am able to see that they are just like me and the perceptions that the media has help me to establish were pretty wrong. I think that everyone needs to be aware of the perceptions that they have and where these perceptions are coming from. I also believe that everyone needs to be willing to change their perceptions on different ideas and people because the perceptions that they have made could be very wrong. This could be because they were not very informed about the subject. Like me not knowing much about different ethnic groups, but it could also be influence by our family members that are trying to sway us in different directions.

Have you had a time when you have had to change your perceptions about someone else because you have found them to be false?

Appeals to the emotions

Thinking back to high school there was a speaker who came into school and was talking about drunk driving. His method in trying to persuade us and make it so that we don't drink in drive was to appeal to our emotions. He did this through a variety of ways. First, he gave his personal story about when he was younger and decided to drive drunk. He ended up hitting someone and if I remember right he killed someone. So part of his conviction was to go around to schools and tell other students the dangers of drinking and driving. So with this story he was hoping that with this sad story it would make us think about this before we decided to drink and drive. He explained how it changed his life forever and everyday he remembers about the day that he decided to drink and drive and he didn't want us to have to go through that. When this happened he lived in a small town like the town that I grew up in and he said that everyone knew everyone which is the same as my hometown. He said not only him but his family was affected because everyone knew that he had killed one of their family members, friend, or other acquaintance. So he couldn't go anywhere in town with out getting stares from people and he knew they were staring at him because they killed someone. He told this story to appeal to our emotions in hopes that we would think before we decided to drink and drive.
Have you ever had a school assembly where someone was appealing to your emotions in hopes of making you change an action?

Groups

The most productive group that I have been in was when I was a Junior in high school. I was in our Honors English class and we had to do a parody to a book that we have read in class. My group picked a movie to portray or parody. The reason why this group was successful was that we were all pretty good friends so we got along is always a major hurdle that you have to get over when working in groups. Also the teacher let us pick our groups so we were able to pick people we would be able to work well with. Another thing that we did before we started was we appointed a leader which helped to keep everyone on task and made sure that we got everything done. Another factor that helped to contribute to our success was that we all were motivated and wanted to get a good grade on the project.

Then on the other hand, when I was a senior in high school we had to work in groups for my government class, and this group didn't work as well together. One of the reasons why this group didn't do as good was because some of the people in the group were not motivated and didn't care what they received for a grade. So with that they would be messing around and they wouldn't do their share of the work; so I ended of doing most of it because I didn't want to do bad on it. One of the ways the group could have been more effective would be if the other kids cared about how they did. Or if the teacher would see who did what and then assign different grades to different students depending on how much work they actually did.

Have you ever been in a group were your group members didn't care about how they did or what grade they would get?

The statement that the person who posses and controls information has power can be related to many historical topics but the one that comes to mind first is the slave trade. The reason why I believe this is because the slave owners had all the power over the slaves because they were able to control the information about the slave's families. They would use this to make the slaves work harder and work longer. The slave owner also never let the slaves recieve any formal education because then they would be able to revolt against them more easily; because then slaves would be able to communicate with eachother more easily.
It is also important for speakers to have power throught their information about a certain topic that they are giving their speech on. When we are giving speeches we need to be in control so that our audience is paying attention to us and listening to what we have to say. But we also need to leep are speeches interesting and relavent so that the audience has an eaiser time paying attention.
Since I am going into education I think about how this phrase can also be applied to teaching and how it will affect how I teach. Teacher know what they are teaching on very well so they posses and control the information. With this they have the power to keep the students in line and so that they can become the bearers of the information and then they will have the power over others. Then finally when you are a teacher you also have the power to some extent to choose what you want to teach.
Do you believe that teachers have power over you since they have the information?

Listening

I am sure everyone has had a time when they were talking to someone and you could tell that they weren’t listening to a word you said. Or you were giving a speech to some classmates and they were goofing around and not listening at all. This could be for many different reasons; they could have been watching a movie or a sporting event on T.V. or they were listening to music or they just don’t think you are important so they aren’t going to listen to you. When people don’t listen to you it can create many mixed emotions. You could be mad at the person or persons because they aren’t listening to what you have to say or it could make you fell little because you believe that you aren’t important enough for them to listen to you. For me when I feel that I am being ignored I get mad at that person and I usually quit talking to them and ignore them back. But we should probably not do either one of these because everyone of us has been there and for some reason or another didn’t pay attention to what a friend or family member has said to us and we are acting like a two year old. You can usually tell that a person is not listening to you when you ask them a question and they don’t respond or they say what? This reflection is important because when a class mate is giving a speech we should listen intently to what they have to say. Because when someone doesn’t listen to us we get mad and feel like we are unimportant. So we should give the respect to the person that is giving the speech the respect that we want when we are giving our speeches

Week 2 Blog

Thinking back of a time when I was in the audience and the speaker was not able to connect with the audience, I could not tell you what the presentation was about. I remember being there but since he never connected with us I don’t remember what he said. For this reason, it is very important that you connect with your audience so that they remember what you were trying to convey to them. Also during the presentation you lose focus and start to talk with your or do other things that may become distracting to others. In return that might keep someone else from being able to listen to what the presenter had to say so it starts a downward spiral.
As a speaker there are a few things that I believe you need to do so that you are able to connect with your audience. First, while you are writing the speech you should know the type of audience that you will be speaking to, and the education level of the audience. The reason why you need to know this is so that you tailor your speech to them. For example, if you are speaking to a group of 3rd graders you will not use all the technical terms that you would use if you were speaking to a group of dentists.
Another thing you need to do is while you are speaking make sure you add emphasis, and make your nonverbal components evident. You want to hold the audience’s attention during your speech and one way to do this is add in a couple stories. Or you could use audience participation to help keep your audience entertained and keep them interested in what you are talking about. Something that helps this is you need to pick a topic that you are interested in so that you can show enthusiasm. But you also need to pick a topic that your audience has some interest in so that they will listen to you.

Why we need speech classes

From the time that we are born, to the time that we die, we will use some sort of communication everyday so that people can know, that we want or need something. When we are babies we will cry or fuss when we are hungry or we are not feeling good. Then, as we grow older, we learn how to talk and eventually type. Which, is becoming a more common way to communicate to others.
A lot of the improvement that we make in the way that we communicate comes from being in school and learning to write papers and give speeches. For this reason, it is important that students take a speech class in college and other educational environments. So that, we are always improving in the way in which we communicate to others. In these classes you not only learn how to talk in front of people but you also learn how to listen more intently when others are talking. This will be a benefit not only in school when professors but also in the working environment, when others are giving presentations to you. Speech classes help you to add emphasis on certain words and put more excitement in your presentation so that you can keep people interested in what you are talking about. It is also important because there are very few if any jobs that you don’t communicate in some sort or another on a daily basis. This communication could be an email, presentation, talking in person, or on the phone. These are just a few examples of the many ways in which we communicate.
But when it comes to the type of speech class that we take it should be somewhat based on the major that we are going to go into. For example, if you are in education your speeches should be more like lessons on a certain subject or idea rather than a speech because I believe giving a speech is a lot different than teaching. Another example might be, if you are in a business major your speeches should be more presentations about different things that you might run into in the workforce.