How to Start Speaking- Voice Blog(script-included)

Ondy Ho
Dec 23, 2018
6 min read

Updated: Dec 31, 2018

Sorry, this is my first attempt and many of the things I mentioned were not recorded... So here's something that you could still look at, while listening.

Today I want to have something special.... a voice blog!! Originally, I wanted to have a video blog but I feel weird talking to a screen. Unlike some, they seem very comfortable speaking to a screen than to real people. I'm the opposite because I feel better. I feel actually my best when I talk to people face to face and not looking at my record icon (on phone). But anyways, maybe later I will conquer this fear. Just like how I teach other people how to conquer their fear of speaking, I must conquer my own.

(the "skip silence" function is going on and off during recording... I apologize for the confusion it makes )

The purpose of [Free The Language] is of course to free the language. By saying that I mean...

language is supposed to be ...used especially spoken. It's used to communicated with other people and if you don't ... if you cant communicate with other people either by words or spoken language, then you lose the point of learning. If you don't have a purpose of learning (a language), you might as well just learn something else, or not learn at all.

In my classes, I want to show people

that they can actually do it because of the fact that I'm one of you, born and raised in Taiwan, didn't go to a foreign university like so many others do...I'm just like you. I want people to see that "if I could do it, you could do it". I'm a living example.

(sorry I didn't talk about number 2 or 3...back to the purpose of FTL)

There was that one day when I was thinking about life and what happens afterwards... I look myself and I think my job is to ... inspire, to tell people that they can become something or to help people in my way. But how many people can I actually help and of all the people that I reached, how many of them can get what I am trying to do. What happens after I cannot teach anymore? What happens when I left, either Taiwan or "left(died)". I was thinking about what I can leave behind. I thought I could create a website so I could just start writing in a semi-official way because I didn't pay for a domain haha. Maybe after I died, I could have someone do it for me. Legacy... I guess. This is it for me, to help, to inspire, to inspire more and also to inspire after I can't.

The second thing I want to talk about is public speaking. I'm hesitating on it because I've never had any official education on it. There was "PB" in my college, FJU and I didn't take it. Why didn't I? I was busying trying to graduate. I didn't want to stay any longer in college. Anyways... why do so many English learners who have problems speaking in public? The main reason is their fear of speaking, their fear of not being enough is what stops them. Just like me, I have a fear to speak in front of a camera or a device. One of the reasons that I hate it is that I get so stressed out doing it... When I am stressed out, I sleep-talk! I don't want to do that anymore and I KNOW I AM SLEEPTALKING... I could hear it but I can't control. So talking to this device right now is like knowing that I'm sleep-talking except that now I know... I'm not sleeping.

Am I....?

How do we overcome fear? There are certainly several ways to do it. One of them is to of course to just face it, to actually just don't think about it too much and do it. Again, like me, (how I start recording) I had an idea of having a voice blog and I wrote it on my little whiteboard, thought about it for a few days. I wanted to be able to look at it(fear) and to remind me again, to make me less afraid of it. So three days later( I wrote the idea on Friday), I look at my phone... eight and a half minutes ago... and it's Tuesday which means I get all the silence because I don't work until later. Now I'm alone. I can practice overcoming my fear of talking to a camera or just my phone. Facing it definitely helps you to start solving your problems. Before you start, you can

write it down like what I did, keep a note somewhere to let it remind you. We don't want to start something when we're still super scared. I am scared right now but not as much because the whiteboard has been reminding me that this is something that I got to do so I feel less fearful.
pick a time when you are alone. Pick somewhere, sometime when you're alone and just like me talking to myself. If you're afraid of yourself, I don't know what else you can do. "Talk to a mirror", they said. I'm not sure about this because talking to yourself in the mirror where you can look at yourself feels a little more weird. I don't think I'm ready for that yet. Use your phone and record yourself.
Be like a kid. They don't think; they just do. It's when we're older that we thinking too much and we don't do anymore. The only thing that is stopping us is ourselves.

My number one suggestion(for overcoming the fear of speaking) would be, face it, face it alone when you want to practice public speaking. I know it is "public" but we got to start somewhere. We maybe practice "private speaking" first... in order to have the skills to do it.

Number two and this is what I will do or have someone help me do. After you recorded yourself, listen again (and again and again...) and type the words out.

-------------------------------------------------About how I speak-------------------------------------------------

Right now I don't have a script. Personally, I work or speak better without a script. I've tried it before and almost.. no... every time when I have a script pre-written down which I wrote, I would care too much about saying the same thing (line) and that stops me from speaking better. I always say that I speak better "freestyle" and in work too. I work better when there are no rules, no stupid lesson plans. In the ten plus years of my career, I've never had a lesson plan unless it is forced upon me from the employers. Lesson plans are not bad but they're just not good for me because I'd have to spend energy to remember what I got to do. Of course it helps you become more organized which is another of my weaknesses. I am not organized, don't want to be either. I want to be able to be free to change the content of my lesson accordingly and constantly. If I feel that the student is taking on another direction, I'd probably go with it. I.E., if my audience are not that passionate about the topic I'm talking about, I'd probably talk about something else. I don't want to keep doing something that doesn't fit the situation at the moment. It would just end up being a bad class. Just like teaching children or anything at all. If your students are not interested in the things you're teaching, then... you can't teach. You can only teach when they want to learn. People can only receive help when they want to help themselves.

-------------------------------------------------About self-help-----------------------------------------------------

(realizing myself getting lost in the steam of consciousness )

Back to "typing out the script", I think this is a good practice. This is of course if you do it without a script which I feel it being better. Just see where your mind takes you. Just see where it takes you because it doesn't hurt anybody and don't think too much. What I wrote was

"voice blog"

"talk about six months"

"the purpose of it"

"public speaking"

Just write easy bullet-points so you don't keep making noises like "um..." or being very quiet. Look at the points and squeeze every little idea that you have. In time, that's going to help people a lot. And it's free, totally free, totally doable. Everybody can do it. (checking the time) If you don't have a phone or 20 minutes...you probably don't have a life. You probably shouldn't be learning ... (just kidding) There's something wrong with your life! You should do something about it.

Take 10 or 20 minutes, or 5... and just keep talking. My problem is that I talk too much. I'm trying to fix it. If I can remember, I try to stop myself every once in a while but I get so passionate and excited about talking to people! That's why I don't stop that much. This is good when my listener... I don't want them to be "listeners". I want them to be active in talking back. In our culture we get so used to listening. Not even listening, we're just "sitting" there watching people talk because we didn't get the chance to talk back. We didn't get the chance to raise questions...

(realizing that I forgot music)

Final tips:

meditation music

motivational speeches

See you next time~ Bye.