Persuasive speech

Be frankly, I never give any persuasive speech before in public or in class. What I have done is just in essay form, and I never study in deep what persuasive speech is. I know how to convince other, but what is the real technique? I don’t know. What I know is present what I think through the language.

My first persuasive speech was not a good one, even I have put a lot of effort (many not enough) inside. The topic was euthanasia (I never hear this before, as Joel said, it should like a continent). My preservative thinking told me that I should against this new ‘continent’. Yes, I do. I searched up the net, doing a lot of research on it. To prevent plagiarism, I actually put in effort to think of some new idea, although they are weak.

Thanks a lot to Ming Chai who had helped me throughout the preparation. I am weak, and he kept correcting me. He contributed his ideas, commented on my pronunciation and intonation, gave me invaluable advises. I was SO touch. He was having test in the next day but he accompanied me throughout the 4-hour exhausting rehearse. I would be more nervous without his help.

Pretty odd, I did my speech not during EALD lesson, but after school, together with the German class student. As usual, I became nervous and hair-wired. Numerous grammatical errors were made and the fact all had leaved my mind. Like a robot, I passed my speech with marginalized mark.

Suddenly, I knew I was so far away from Joel and the others. Joel, typically, did not prepare much for his speech, but his impromptu skill and lively presentation style had already gathered all the attention from every corner of the classroom. Moreover, he had all the information he need in his speech: emotional appeal (key to success), strong viewpoint (although you may find them over the need) and funny element (is euthanasia a continent?). When he came to the part regarding real life stories (at his maximum speed), I suddenly feel the sorrow had aroused me. It is touching, really.

Even I feel Ms Chan was so bias to give him such an incredible high mark, but I knew he deserve it. Compared to his emotional appeal, my shocking statistic was not longer shocking.