Friday, December 16, 2016

Video link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO4H6KGODlg

Public speaking is a course that is only half a year and the intention of the course is to improve the speeching skill of every student in the class.  Every day, students were challenged by different topic and forced to make up new ideas. In the beginning, everybody who has no idea about each other was sitting in a small classroom staring at each other. Soon, the teacher Mrs.Guarino start the class with an effective icebreaker that helped students to know each other by using a simple speech. Then, we start to practice how to add emotion into one speech to make it more interesting. At first, students cannot find the feeling but when the nervousness was reduced, everybody find their own way. Although I am still horrible at remembering the name, I can still remember how one student has so much confidence and humor inside his speech. Henry, the only white male's name I remembered in the class due to he has another class with me, has great confidence and sounds pretty passion. Throughout each speech, people can tell how each student slowly developing their own skill. Even more, because there are many speeches that closely relates to personal interest and fast reaction everybody get to know each other more which created a great atmosphere that nobody feels alone or awkward during discussions. This lovely atmosphere further made the speech from each person more engaging and more humorous which further increases the bond between each person thus creating a benign circle that keeps going on. For me, my original goal is to get more familiar with my English usage and practice my writing skill. Both of them were achieved throughout practices from Public speaking class. Every time I practice my speech by proofreading it and repetitively reading it, I find out many different grammatical errors which help me in next writing. Also, I can more clearly represent my opinion in a shorter sentence to others orally which make me happy that I took this class. Besides these original goals, I also received something I never thought I can receive: friendship. Before taking this class, I do not have an African American named Jaquan or hockey player or a music writer. But after this class, I did. Friendship is such an important thing that is hard to achieve throughout living alone. With this class and with my written speech of John Smith, I did. Especially, people like Sam and Jarett (I finally get some names!), they have a unique way of speaking and make jokes with others that I can learn from. Their humorous, thoughts, way of learning, and how they show respect teaches me. As a class, I believe everybody learn not only how to make a speech and perform it well enough but also a different perspective and culture interaction.  In conclusion, Public speaking, a class that only is a semester, have not only teach me how to speak and write in English but also let me receive precious friendship that I have never consider about before taking this class. 

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Blog due

My final project is not really going well. Although I have already have my main thesis but the problem for my speech is lack of humor. I usually add a huge amount of humor for all of my speech. However, I realize my project is more toward using logical reasoning to persuade audience but not attracting audience so I am stuck on it. I am now finished with my thesis and body paragraphs but in these body paragraphs I think I am lack of personal details or stories that made it cliche. The good part of my speech is I had a great start which really attracts readers. Also, the topic closely relates to life being in Cheshire Academy so it might attract to Cheshire Academy students. Also, I tried to appeal to touch with variety groups of students on campus to make my speech attractive. However, I think I have more room of improvement to et my speech appeal to larger group of people because my thesis :pay more attention to now but not future, closely relates to every human being. Other improvements I can think of is grammatical. As an international student, I acknowledge my inability to make my speech without any grammar mistake. I might need to go to writing center to improve my grammar skill. Also, word choice limited my persuading efficiency. With more precise adjective to describe my emotion and the examples I listed in my speech might make the speech more persuasive. Other improvements might be add more attractive personal story that relates to my thesis. However, it is hard for my age to find any attracting personal story that is unique from others so I might need to make up stories that sounds real. Overall, I had my main points written down but I have huge space for improvements such as grammatical, word choice and personal stories.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Reflection and Speech

Reflection:
Over the two speech I read (Fisher Chen and Vera), I realize how to not make it boring. Both speeches really focus on telling their personal life stories that do not relate to most of the audience thus audience might feel it is boring. Also, although they mentioned a specific theme, but both of the speech did not really address this theme which makes the speech hard to follow. The advantage of their speech is simple language use so it is easy to understand.  The weakness of these speeches made me understand how to not make it boring.



Speech:
   I have a dream, that one day I can have a house and a family of four. Well, I have dreams, you have dreams, everybody has dreams. Dreams give us the motivation and determination to step forward and try to achieve our best. I guess for everybody sitting here, your current goal is to achieve higher GPA or run faster,become stronger...  However, by only focusing on your current goal, you will lose in touch with your surroundings. Life is like a train and the scene outside the window is irreversible. Same, you can only experience one high school life and the unique experience is never gonna come back. So, step out and interact with things and people. But, do not confuse my words with others, I am not asking you to step out of your comfort zone and telling you the benefits of socializing with a diverse group. It is your own life, do the things you prefer to do. With that in mind, use your time wisely and try something different. High school is the last time period that we do not need to be fully independent. High school is the last period of time to enjoy the privilege of teenagers. So, what I suggest here is to try something you never tried. Maybe take some art class? Try to learn how to play football? Maybe take a long hike in the backfield?Maybe use your weekend to explore the whole town, well ,you need your parent's permission for doing this, else, Ms.Barry is watching you.

High school, high school, high school. We have four years in high school, sounds a lot, but as time passes by, we realize, it is such a short period of time.Time passes faster than we thought, after years, we will forget most of the things happened here permanently. Every year, somebody we know will leave and when they leave, the relationship will slowly fade until someday, you will feel a bit awkward when contacting with that person. Yesterday night, I was looking at photos from previous years, I laughed, on one photo there are sixteen people in there including me. And now? Only I am still in this school and same as them I will soon leave the school. When they left, things change and you realize, you will never met them again. So, everybody, please pay attention to everybody around you and live actively through this day.

  At last, remember, your main goal is still important than the current surrounding but still, relax and take a look around. When you are old, I hope there will be more memory about "thank god, I have done this but not "oh geez, why have I not done this" memories. So, Enjoy your high school life and have a great day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO4H6KGODlg

John Smith
       It is such a wonderful day outside, birds are singing, flowers are blooming, on days like these, people like me should leave the world. I am now seventy-six, and my life is a disaster.
      I once believe in when I work hard, I will receive the benefits. My theory was correct for almost half a century while I am a teacher in Cheshire Academy. Once our school has more than 200 students in our town that is located in Ohio. The wealthy workers in that steel mill will put their kids in our school for education. And I, with twenty other teachers will do our best to teach these kids and watch them grow. It was nice, our big playground use to have kids from 10-16 playing baseball, dodgeball or other sports with a huge smile on them. However, things slowly turn out not right. Jacky, the student who has the highest grade, and 20 other kids cannot afford to stay in the school due to their parents were kicked out by the factory. I did my best to save their education with all the faculty members by decreasing our salary. However, with more and more workers left their job due to the steel mill cannot make any profit. One by one, people leave and we only have 15 students left us. Still, although I am the only teacher who is still teaching in this school, I will do try my best to be the principle. However, one day, our town government cannot afford any budget to our school. That day, I locked the gate, it is not only the gate of the school but also I locked myself from the world
   I cannot forget that scene when I need to tell all 15 families that the school is closed. When the lights of hope in their eyes diminished. I am sorry, I am sorry I am sorry. My best friend and my wife had already left me for other reasons. And, Josh, thank you for staying with the school until the last moment. Since you already leave, I will come with you.
  Well, it is still a beautiful day outside and I believe, I failed everybody. With the gun in my hand, I believe, at least I can leave in a peaceful way.


Thursday, November 17, 2016

proposal

Proposal

My final project is going to be my senior speech in Cheshire Academy. My senior speech will be around 3-5 minutes depends on the requirements for senior speech. My intended audience will be mainly about seniors and other students and faculty members. The speech will be going to be ideas about what I believe and want to inform everybody what I believe. First I will start with I believe a dream that everybody lives together with harmoney… However, I will soon turn and say “you know,sometimes, dream is too far away so lets talk about what can make us finnish our high school life.” I will need to address every kind of people to make people pay attention on my speech. For example, I will make an example of ice hockey players, how they cooperate and achieve a goal. The main theme of my speech will be determination. Determination make us move forward, make us achieve our goal, force us to do whatever we want. Also, I will encourage everybody to live in a different lifestyle. Encourage everybody to follow there own though and live happily. Remeber, high school is not a place you take your education,it is a memorable four year experience that you will never receive while you grow up. Between lines and lines, I will add some my personal experience, my personal thought and what I learnt from this school to my speech to enrich my speech with more details. To further attract more audiences, it is better to add some more humor between lines and lines. The speech will be semi-formal so I will avoid using very informal words such as folks or dude. Also, I will memorize the whole speech to increaswe fluency and add emotions to it.Overall, my senior speech will be mainly about determination and live your high school life as a part of your life experience.

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Tea culture

Tea, one of the most common drinks of the world, has different ways to taste and enjoy a cup of tea. I am here to introduce some better ways of drinking tea that helps you have a better taste. However, due to hundreds of different brands of teas and more than ten different ways of preparing and drink tea, I will only introduce some simplest ways of enjoying your tea. First, find a comfortable and quiet spot to drink your tea. Usually, places like on the couch in the middle of a huge party is not suitable but places like in a bamboo house that is placed in the middle of a forest or a table in your garden will be a better place. After picking a good spot, start boiling the water. The most common way for boiling water now is put the water in a water boiler, it is usable but not the best choice. Water boiled in metal equipment will have the taste of metal and other alloys. Using charcoal burner and place the raw water in a porcelain teapot will be better. Water, on the other hand, have different brands such as river water, snow water, purified water or rain. Each water will have different tastes. After boiling the water, we need to put the tea leaves into the teapot. The easiest way is definitely just to throw some tea leaves into the teapot. However, this will not give you the exact richness of tea. A better and efficient way is to prepare a tea funnel and a small spoon. Use the spoon to measure a number of tea leaves you need and put it into the tea funnel. Let the hot boiling water flow through the tea funnel then into the tea pot. The tea bubbles should exactly reach the tip of teapot but not spilling out. Then wait, different kind of tea have different waiting times and different waiting time will produce different flavors. And then, with a well-made tea, you can enjoy rest of your afternoon and have a great day.



http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E8%8C%B6%E9%81%93/5106
"一是品茗之趣 二是茶助诗兴 三是以茶会友 四是雅化茶事"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_tea_culture
"Light finger tapping is a customary way to thanking the tea master or tea server for tea"
http://travel.cnn.com/shanghai/eat/ireport/12-things-about-your-cha-local-tea-house-wont-tell-you-669772/
"Best time for drinking 铁观音 is fall."

http://www.yacook.org/node/1130
Basically, how do you prepare a cup of tea: 二,置:等待壶温热的时间里,将要泡的叶从仓中取出,放入则。这时可以请宾客赏,也借这个机会与客人交流,介绍他们认识此的特色,香气?颜色?外观?赏完后再放回原处。
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Prepare-and-Serve-Traditional-Chinese-Tea/
"One of the benefits of tea is that most Americans might not think about is that it can act as a substitute for coffee as it has similar caffeine effects. People tend to drink coffee as part of their morning routine, but substituting coffee for tea can be a healthier alternative. Preparing and serving Chinese tea is a delicate art that can become a part of anyone’s daily life."



Monday, October 31, 2016

Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen, I am here to inform everybody that I, John Smith, will make the United States stand at the top of the world again. Our country is now facing great danger, we have the highest public debt of the world, we have lost to Russia on Ukraine crisis and ISIS on the middle east problem, China, on the other hand, is threatening our market and destroying our economy. It is already a dangerous period, but now, none of the presidential candidates can lead the country through. One has no political experience and the other one will never share what was she hiding. As the treasury of the state, I acknowledge some obvious mistakes we can improve. Our country has the highest military budget in the world which is insane. If I am the president, I will input more money on public health care and support a free college system. Also, I guarantee that I will bring more job positions to everybody by establishing new trade agreements with South America and other third world countries.   So, every American citizen, if you are willing to see our country to step into power again, please vote for me and I, John Smith, will not let you regret for your vote.  

Friday, October 28, 2016

The presidential speech students did recently is a different speech compare to what students have done in the previous months. Presidential speech focuses on pathos and how to organize the ideas clearly and transmit it to audiences. Students not only need to focus on their own voice, sound, standing position and eye contacts, they also need to really focus on the content they have to deliver an effective presidential speech. By writing and presenting a presidential speech, I learned a lot. First, I understand how to have an effective ending which will increase the effectiveness of the speech. Usually, by using inclusive language and restate my main thesis and points, I will establish an effective speech that will refresh the memory inside audiences. Another important point is through the speech, my use of pathos was strengthened. In the first draft, I did not stress many patho techniques which made my passage will not appeal to reader's emotion. However, after several peer reviews, I understand the importance of pathos so I add several stories of my fake relative of how they struggle to pay a bill and connect the dead children to the issue of gun control to further strengthen the policy I propose. On logo level, I understand the importance to use credible sources to add credibility to my speech. Also by using logic conversion, I can further strengthen my points and present it clearly to my audience. However, I have already understood the importance of logos but my problem is the overuse of logos which might have a negative effect on the audience by thinking that I am a robot .This time, I only use one source per point to reduce the numbers of evidence I use which I believe, have a more positive effect. On presenting side, I still have some issues I need to improve but is better than last major project. First, clearness, sometime I spoke words with unconfidence and cannot speak words clearly to let readers understand due to English is my second language. This time, I believe I perform better on the clearness of speech delivery. Still, I have a long way to go after I have seen how other American Native speakers deliver their speech with confidence. On the other hand, tones, I often start with a strong opening but my tone will continue to slow and turn into a monotone. For this issue, I still believe I am better than the first time I am delivering my speech. After several practices with debates and speeches, I might have performed better on delivering a speech with a variation of tone to attract readers. Overall ,I believe I have learned a lot from this class on content and presentation skill. However, I still need to focus on how to improve my tones and the clearness of speech due to nervous and unfamiliar with English. To improve that, the only way is to continue having debates and different public speaking tasks which will reduce my stress and practice my speaking skills with other people.