Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 144-158). Also available in print.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / With a basic understanding of the connection between EAPS and the goals of public speaking I will focus on issues especially challenging to EAPS students due to cultural and language differences, which include: communication apprehension, understanding your audience’s frame of reference, rhetorical organization, and non-verbal communication.

A non-concurrent multiple baseline design across eight participants was used to determine whether working through Hayes and Smith's (2005) book would help those with public speaking anxiety. Hayes and Smith (2005) is based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. It encourages people to accept internal experiences as opposed to avoiding and struggling with them. For the purposes of this study, the book was divided into nine components, which participants discussed with the researcher. They also completed measures daily, during baseline and over the intervention period, as well as a battery of tests pre-baseline, mid and post intervention. The multiple baseline data showed that self-reported willingness to approach public speaking situations increased while self-reported avoidance decreased over the intervention. The pre and post measures also showed avoidance of internal experiences decreased significantly after the intervention. These outcomes are in line with changes suggested to result from engaging in such a therapy. The pre and post results also showed that quality of life increased significantly from mid to post-intervention. However, engagement with values did not change. While this measure is expected to change after such an intervention, this result may have occurred because the ideas about values were introduced last in the book. The intervention also led to significant decreases in anxiety, significant changes in thoughts about public speaking and significant increases in anxiety control as shown by the test battery. These findings are positive but are not predicted by processes posited for this therapy. However, there was no control group so these pre vs post comparisons must be interpreted with caution. Despite this limitation, the results suggest that the book, together with therapist contact, can help those with public speaking anxiety.

No description available.

Public Speaking Anxiety (PSA) arises from the real or anticipated performance of an oral presentation. People with PSA experience an increase in Heart Rate (HR), negative self- focused thoughts and observable behaviours such as, trembling or non-fluent speech. In this study Video Self-Modelling (VSM), an intervention based on observational learning, was used to increase performance fluency and decrease cognitive, behavioural, and physiological anxiety. Ten high school students with high PSA participated from an English class in a New Zealand school. Video self-models were created for each student through editing to depict confident speaking and then viewed by the students 5 to 8 times over a fortnight. Results indicated from pre-intervention to post-intervention that all students decreased their level of behavioural anxiety. Seven of the ten students decreased their level of self-reported speech anxiety and six students self-reported more positive thoughts about public speaking. There was a decrease in HR for two of the four students, who wore HR monitors during the study. These results suggest that VSM could be used as an intervention, within a high school setting, to reduce anxiety and improve public speaking performance.

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. Carol Poster, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of English. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 22, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

The purpose of this paper was to identify video feedback and self monitoring as a positive teaching strategy for improving the public speaking behavior in a classroom setting. An ABA withdrawal design was utilized with four adolescent, male teenage boys (ages 12-18). During the intervention, participants reviewed videotaped probes of their public speaking behavior and completed the self monitoring form. The results of the current study provided mixed results in that while some participants improved in one or more aspects of their behavior, only two of the four participants improved all aspects of their behavior. However, when taken into consideration with the anecdotal evidence provided there is some support for the use of video feedback with self monitoring to improve public speaking performance.

Rhetorical studies have been lacking in the area of John F. Kennedy's ceremonial speeches. Therefore, it was felt that a contribution could be made by analyzing samples of President Kennedy's speeches delivered on special occasions in order to describe what he used in such situations and where possible to attempt to explain why he used these devices. This study will be done in light of principles given by some classical and modern rhetoricians concerning the ceremonial speech. The specific criteria will be the rhetorical canons of invention, disposition, and style.

This study investigated curricular methods to reduce communication apprehension among public speaking students. Previous research has found many intervention strategies to be successful in reducing levels of communication apprehension, including both visualization and cognitive restructuring. However, prior research has failed to examine the efficacy of such techniques within the context of teaching a public speaking course that has limited time to devote to these techniques. Consequently, an experiment was conducted which examined whether a one hour instructional unit using cognitive restructuring and visualization can reduce levels of communication apprehension among public speaking students. The results of the study indicate that a one hour instructional unit does not reduce the anxiety of high communication apprehensive students in a public speaking course.

This study deals with public speaking among teenagers. It is the sincere hope of the writer that this thesis may challenge young people and help motivate them to become better speakers. If it does this then it is partly successful. It may point out some weaknesses and habits in their own style of speaking that are handicaps rather than assets. It may also show some of the strong points of teenage public speaking in general, the writer hopes it will help young speakers want to overcome the trifles of poor speech habits to make their speaking nearer perfection.