On Thursday, 2 May 2022, Applied Foreign Languages program of Universitas Diponegoro held a webinar for its students. This webinar aims to provide insight into how to be a good speaker. This webinar presents a speaker who is experienced in the field of public speaking, namely Stefanie Sewotaroeno from Suriname. In this activity, Landya Putri served as the host and Fira Ayu served as moderator. Both are second-year students of Applied Foreign Languages.
In this session, Stefanie shared about public speaking based on her experience. She said that, public speaking is about speaking directly to people and communicating effectively.
According to Stefanie, there are 4 types of public speaking, as follows:
- Speak to inform > lecture or webinar
- Speak to move > activism, charity, etc.
- Speak to entertain > theatrical performance, poem reading, storytelling, etc.
- Speak to persuade > politics, preach, etc.
Stefanie also shared some tips to speak well in public. Some of her tips are below:
- Do prepare,
- Train to control your voice and breath,
- Rehearse the speech,
- Video- or audio-record yourself while delivering speech,
- Practice speaking with the mirror,
- Ask for others’ feedbacm.
Stefanie reminded the students that during public speaking we can make eye-contact with the audience, make good body language, engage with the public, make organic speeches, and control the intonation.
There were so many questions from the participants when the Q&A session was opened. One of the questions came from Landya, namely “How can you overcome nervousness in front of people and make some mistakes or even forget the words?”. Stefanie responded, “One important tip, which is to let people not know what you are saying is wrong. You have to keep doing it, and never fix it or repeat words.”
Lastly, Stefanie gave the students a warm wishes, “I hope you guys can develop your public speaking skills, by doing some exercises. Give your voice to the world because the world needs your voice, and I wish you all the best.”
Author: Vergina Moluscas
Translator: Aditya Nur Patria