Speech Delivery: Factors Influencing Students’ Perceptions versus Reality in South Korea

Abstract

Speaking in public involves three parts: an act, a process, and art; however, stage fright is a common dilemma for students across all proficiency levels and cultural orientations. In this paper, some critical factors of successful public speaking affecting both students’ self-scoring and the professor’s grading of in-class presentations were scrutinized using a likert-based survey method with quantitative and qualitative results. Specifically, areas investigated were anxiety, gestures and facial expressions, voice tone and relaxed attitude or behavior, spontaneity, and planned organization of delivery. It was found by the professors in this course that there are no statistically significant values or differences between students’ self-evaluation and actual delivery in the five factors or aspects of their public speaking performances. However, whether the differences are huge or tiny, the resulting report of our research was informative, as the differences provide the vehicle for understanding some issues in teaching and learning which require further attention and reconciliation in a public speaking class. This paper offers insights to guide teachers and students in carrying out their goals and objectives more realistically in public speaking classes by examining student perspectives on public speaking in the target language.