英語日記 人前で話すのが苦手

Looking back, I messed up on most occasions in the past where I had to talk in front of people. I especially remember three distinct times of such occasions.

The first time was when I gave a presentation at a history class in university. I was aware of my lack of preparation and just desperately rushed to finish my turn. It was about history around WW1. A takeaway from my research was, I concluded, that humans become cooperative only when we find a common enemy to fight together or something, and so, all humans could truly come together only when we face any thread from extraterrestrials. When I wrapped it up, the class fell silent and the teacher gave a bitter laugh.

The second time was when I was asked to talk at a class about my experiences of studying abroad. I owed the teacher who asked me that a lot, but I absolutely ruined the occasion saying something quite garbled while trying to say my experiences were terrible and you should think very well before going abroad, before I ended up in awkward silence in front of nearly hundred students. It was so awkward that the teacher stopped me in the middle.
It felt like I returned a favor with harm.

Finally, it was when I went to Mexico on a business trip in a previous job. Hundreds people came to this event. I was told to give a small talk about anything in front of them. I tried to prepare for it beforehand, but there wasn’t enough time and it was difficult to prepare a draft in Spanish, so I just decided to wing it. The result was devastating. I just stood in front of many people, made my self introduction and left a comment like people were kind and everything I ate there was very good. That was it. I left the platform fast. My talk only lasted for less than five minutes whereas they planned 20 minutes for it. I clearly sensed the bafflement of the M.C.

From these experiences, it might be fair to think that I struggle to improve my spoken English: I’m not good at speaking in general.