Thursday, October 6, 2011

My First Toastmaster Prepared Speech: "Programmer that Supposed to be a Teacher"

This blog should be consist most story about software engineering field. But software engineer also human that should have good communication skills. That's why, the last two post of this blog is about public speaking club, toastmaster.

Yesterday I just presented my first prepared speech at toastmaster meeting. Moreover, it was not just ordinary meeting, but a join meeting. It's mean, more audience, more people, more eyes and ears and ultimately, more reason to more nervous. D*mn, I stand above two choices. To run away from meeting so I can save without delivering that prepared speech. Or I take this great challenge and present the best as I can.

The offer slot of speech already given by my club president since about last weeks. I just said yes at that time without think too much. I have not prepared the speech until the day and I don't have any idea even for the topic. First project speech in toastmaster is about breaking the ice. Usually we introduce ourself to the forum. Tell about our life, our story or our daily activities. Thanks God, yesterday morning finally I got the topic. The title of the speech is, "Programmer that supposed to be a teacher". Yes this is the story about my career and the reason behind that and correlation to teaching stuff. Just for information, I was graduated from State University of Jakarta, the campus that formerly known as the institution which prepare its student to be a teacher.

Ok then, finally the time has come. Yesterday after office hour I straight go to Veteran Building. Actually, it is located in Plaza Semanggi. I still feel little bit lazy to go to the meeting. But little by little I can get rid of that feeling. I arrive at venue, and dankk, there are so many person. Almost 30 attendee. More than usual. Oh no. Scheduled speaker for that evening is me, Hafiz (president of my club, Jakarta Toastmaster Motivators Club), Irfan from Essential toastmaster club and Zilfa (President of Essentials toastmaster club). The newbie on the list is only me.

The meeting started like usual with Table Topic Session. Several participant was called to stage to give short speech from the clue given by Table Topic Master. Even, for the guest that just came for the first time, they can gave very good table topic speech. And finally table topic session has ended with so much good speech.

Next is Prepared Speech time. In I got the first slot. Dankkk. *_*. Speaking is always intimidating even for most experienced speaker. We just need to get around this and turn the nervous that might be rise as energy to deliver a good speech. Oke then, I went to the stage. The light off and the spotlight shot on me. Of course there was no such spotlight. But when you are on stage, even without spotlight all audience have full focus on you. That was what I felt last night.

First project for toastmaster speech allow us to bring small notes. So hopefully we will not lost when give speech. Then by using the small note start the speech with great energy, confidence and cute smile (oh no :p). Then about 6 minutes passed, I said thank you and I heard applause around the room. Oh God, I passed that gracefully. Little bit can't believed.

At the evaluation session I got very positive feedback from evaluator. Sometime feel like little bit exaggerated. But I will use that feedback to improve more again. For the grammar I still have some mistakes. And for the "ahh" and pause filler I still inadvertent say "ahh" and some another pause filler. Wonderfull night and hopefully will continuously motivate me to learn more.