Take a Public Speaking Course and Conquer the Fear

The purpose of this research project was to investigate if students today still report a fear of public speaking more often than death and if after completing a public speaking their fears change. Participants in a multi-section public speaking course (N = 374) completed a pre- and post-course survey asking them to select their fears and also complete public speaking anxiety questions. The results showed that pre-course public speaking was chosen more often than death and all other fears except for family tragedy, but after completing the course, the fear of public speaking was no longer selected more than death and was not even among the top five fears students listed. The review of literature also addresses why students should enroll in a basic public speaking course and conquer their fear or anxiety about public speaking while still in college.

SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW: USING ENGLISH MOVIES TO DEVELOP ESL LEARNERS’ SPEAKING CONFIDENCE

Can English movies improve ESL learners’ speaking confidence? What are the suggested ways to implement English movies in acquiring speaking confidence for ESL learners? The main goal of the review is to study how English movies can aid ESL learners in higher education who struggle with speaking confidence. The search phrases used in these databases were “English movies” AND “confidence” and “English movies” AND “speaking” in order to acquire a list of relevant research. The first aspect that we will discuss in this review is the issue of low speaking confidence that is usually caused by language anxiety, lack of self-esteem and fear of judgement among other reasons. The articles collected represent language learners from different age ranges such as young kindergarten learners until university level learners. In addition to that, we will also investigate further into the research from the databases available for English movies that can be utilized as instructional aid for ESL learners to acquire speaking confidence. To find relevant research publications, four databases were used: ProQuest, Science Direct, Scopus and JSTOR. The review was carried out by using the UMS Library's access to subscribed databases. As part of this systematic review, we devised a search strategy to collect relevant literature. Researchers over the years have differing opinions on the current situation. The majority of the study indicates that language learners often struggled from speaking anxiety and fear of public speaking whether it is due to judgement of others or their own limited speaking abilities. We have mapped the literature to enable readers to understand the lessons from past literature that can be learned as well as provide a future agenda to the issue.

AudienceMR: Extending the Local Space for Large-Scale Audience with Mixed Reality for Enhanced Remote Lecturer Experience

AudienceMR is designed as a multi-user mixed reality space that seamlessly extends the local user space to become a large, shared classroom where some of the audience members are seen seated in a real space, and more members are seen through an extended portal. AudienceMR can provide a sense of the presence of a large-scale crowd/audience with the associated spatial context. In contrast to virtual reality (VR), however, with mixed reality (MR), a lecturer can deliver content or conduct a performance from a real, actual, comfortable, and familiar local space, while interacting directly with real nearby objects, such as a desk, podium, educational props, instruments, and office materials. Such a design will elicit a realistic user experience closer to an actual classroom, which is currently prohibitive owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper validated our hypothesis by conducting a comparative experiment assessing the lecturer’s experience with two independent variables: (1) an online classroom platform type, i.e., a 2D desktop video teleconference, a 2D video screen grid in VR, 3D VR, and AudienceMR, and (2) a student depiction, i.e., a 2D upper-body video screen and a 3D full-body avatar. Our experiment validated that AudienceMR exhibits a level of anxiety and fear of public speaking closer to that of a real classroom situation, and a higher social and spatial presence than 2D video grid-based solutions and even 3D VR. Compared to 3D VR, AudienceMR offers a more natural and easily usable real object-based interaction. Most subjects preferred AudienceMR over the alternatives despite the nuisance of having to wear a video see-through headset. Such qualities will result in information conveyance and an educational efficacy comparable to those of a real classroom, and better than those achieved through popular 2D desktop teleconferencing or immersive 3D VR solutions.

Glossophobia: The Fear of Public Speaking in ESL Students in Ghana

Glossophobia, an individual’s anxiety of public speaking, has been observed to be a common phenomenon among students. The present study explores factors associated with glossophobia among ESL students of a tertiary institution in Upper-West Ghana, the Dr. Hilla Limann Technical University, Wa and makes recommendations for improvement in their public speaking skills. The study combined both quantitative and qualitative research approaches in an opinion poll involving 46 participants from the Level 300 class of the Secretaryship and Management Studies of the Business School. Participants acknowledged the importance of public speaking, but conceded that at some point in their student lives, when they had to speak in public, glossophobia prevented them from making a good impression on the audience. Speaking English before a crowd was identified as the most dreaded experience. Low self-confidence in speaking in public; lack of constant speaking experience and lack of knowledge in public speaking; fear of making mistakes and being laughed at; inadequate preparation and timidity were also identified as challenges affecting participants’ ability to speak English in public. To help students overcome that phobia, the study recommends that lecturers should adopt an interactive approach combined with the appropriate communication strategies to promote positive attitudes and create the desirable atmosphere for boosting students’ confidence. Lecturers should also organise seminars on public speaking skills and encourage regular individual oral presentation in class so students can practise to develop positive attitudes towards public speaking.

A Survey of Information Technology Applications to Treat Fear of Public Speaking

Public speaking started to gain much attention when it comes to phobias, which is anxiety for new presenters. In some cases, specialists consider that avoiding the phenomenon which causes the phobia is sufficient treatment; in others, the exact opposite, being gradually exposed to the object of fear may lead to a cure. We have to start looking for other psychotherapeutic methods, innovative ones, to help people surpass their immense fears and improve their ability to give presentations. The current article presents a survey on discovering fear and anxiety when preventing and treating it and analyses their utility as tools for learning how to overcome this type of phobias, thus improving presentation ability. Using IT-based solutions for treating presented this fear, especially anxiety for new presenters. The current methods of dealing with the fear of public speaking will be reviewed, as well as Clarify the technology (tools, systems, and applications) based used for detecting and treatment. We will analyze research that studies how to detect fear and the ways to treat it, the concept behind their mechanism and the possibility of exploiting them in presentations. therefore, the paper debates these IT instruments and applications in this field. Based on the results of the survey, we will propose an appropriate mechanism for detecting degrees and types of fear when presenting presentations and their treatment.

Public speaking as a part of police directorates head's activities

The fact is that a manager who is characterized by a confident attitude and clear speech will more easily gain the trust of both subordinates and superiors, because in such a way he will convince them of his knowledge and expertise. In this paper, special emphasis has been placed on the complexity of public speaking of the police directorates heads and the importance of preparation for high-quality public speaking. The paper starts from the fact that overcoming the fear of public speaking can contribute to its improvement. It is evident that the police directorates heads have the fear of public speaking, which has strong manifestations that prevent them from achieving the purpose of their speech. On the basis of content analysis, it can be concluded that the police directorates heads can overcome the fear of public speaking by strengthening their self-confidence; by setting realistic expectations; controlling their thoughts and focusing on the topic, meaning and function of performance; visualization; preparation and practice; maintaining contact with the audience; knowing and checking the equipment used during public speaking. It can be concluded that mastering the skills of public speaking will enable a manager to get rid of the fear of public speaking and thus improve his performance. At the same time, it will enable him to be more confident in other fields of management, while constantly enhancing his organizational and managerial qualities.

A Systematic Review of Self-Coping Strategies Used by University Students to Cope with Public Speaking Anxiety

Despite a growing body of research on instructor techniques and treatments to mitigate public speaking anxiety, this issue remains prominent, especially among university students. An alternative to mitigating such anxiety is to identify authentic coping strategies that university students could practice in actual situations. Numerous studies have attempted to explore students’ personal and social factors with the objective of suggesting suitable coping strategies to reduce the fear of public speaking. This paper reviews the existing evidence to understand the complexities of strategies that university students use to reduce their fear of public speaking.  Nine peer-reviewed studies published between 2015 and 2020 were selected for this review from Science Direct and Google Scholar, using search terms such as “public speaking anxiety” and “coping strategies.” The analysis revealed that university students who (a) had an intermediate level of English language proficiency and a high level of speaking anxiety adopted both compensation and metacognitive strategies; (b) had a high level of English language proficiency and speaking anxiety adopted the affective strategy; and (c) had a high level of speaking anxiety and were exposed to full English medium instruction contexts adopted both social and memory strategies. This review, therefore, provides a better understanding of how university students cope with public speaking anxiety and at the same time urges educators to refine their pedagogical methods to lower the psychological barrier of speaking.