Time Traveler self-evaulation

Knowledge of audience
I respect what the 18th century knows. Since my item was toilet paper, I referenced the toilet they had back in the day: their chamber pot. I mentioned their "toilet paper", which would be the straw, grass, Sears catalogue, etc. I also touched on how they disposed of the waste, as crude as it was. I felt like I was fairly in touch with the audience since I knew their habits when it comes sewage.

Voice
My diction is clearer than I thought it sounded. I was nervous but it turned out better than I thought. My voice is light and clear but can also dip down at times. I think my volume was at a good level, not too loud but not too quiet. I used a few fillers, such as "um" and "whatever", which I don't even know why I did, especially the "whatever"! My vocabulary was understandable; I kept it simple. Even when I had a big term, such as perforated, I defined it for my audience.

Body Language
I don't exactly demand attention. I make a lot of facial expressions and smile, which may have put my audience more at ease. I gesticulate throughout the speech, especially when I was trying to explain how toilet paper was actually made. I stayed in the zone of the camera, but I wasn't stiff. I made eye contact a few times but I was actually looking at the back of the room, and sometimes I looked upward or down at my paper. My posture was upright and I think it means that I was fairly confident when I was presenting. I did not slouch, twitch or continually shift myself around as if I was uncomfortable. I was nervous at times but it didn't show through.

Preparedness
I looked at my notes about 5 times, but they were fairly quick so I didn't think it took away from my presentation too much. Surprisingly  I did not run out of things to say. Some of the things led into another, such as when I had to explain septic tanks and plumbing. The timing ran smoothly and I did not rush through anything.

Overall Effectiveness
I was effective and informative because most of my speech was factual. I could have been more engaging, however. This is because I memorized most of the stuff I was saying and wasn't passionate about it. I mean, it was toilet paper. If I were to go back in time, then I'd have brought in an actual roll of toilet paper as a visual aid. I also would have remembered the name of that guy who took the splinters out of toilet paper and axed out most of my fillers, especially the "whatever". It gave my presentation a really informal tone to it, and I was worrying about it afterwards. I also wish I could speak louder, clearer and make more eye contact.

¿Que pasa comida?

This week in my Spanish class we had to write about a Spanish topic that we were interested in. I chose to do food and tapas, which are appetizers. I got to thinking about the relationship between Spanish and English language. I find it cool how English borrows certain words from the Spanish language already. Some of these include mosquito, taco, and calamare.

Spanish language is simpler than English..in fact, most languages are. There is a lot that's lost in translation. Spanish words tend to overlap in meaning, which is confusing. For example, papa means potato, but Papa, with a capitalized P means pope. And on top of that, papa can also mean father. Could you imagine if you ordered a pope with your steak in a restaurant, or called your dad the Pope? You'd get funny looks.

Of course, English has all that business too when it comes to homophones, homonyms and homographs. I imagine that a Spanish speaker would have a spinning head if they tried to absorb it all at once. I still have trouble with grammar and mechanics. I don't even know what a predicate is and I bet a lot of other native English speakers don't!

 

Diction, accents

You never really notice the way you speak until someone points something out to you.

There seems to be the trend that people assume the way they enunciate is the "right way" until outsiders say it sounds "weird". It all comes down to whether or not you've grown accustomed to something. Geographial locations come into play here. The South always have that southern drawl, along with colloquialisms like "Hey y'all!". In English we did an exercise on diction and it was easy to see how The North slur their "T's" into "D's", such as in the word "butter". The word "water" is pronounced differently everywhere! Around Jersey, it's pronounced "wooder". To actually hear it pronounced they way it should be, with the t "emphasized", it sounds strange.

There are many "accent" challenges on Youtube. It's interesting to see how we all speak differently when it's all the same language in the end. If anything we should pay homage to the originators of the language and speak with an English accent. I wonder how that happened, that the British enunciation was not carried over when the language settled in America.