Alas, eye contact is something most of our students struggle with when they present their speech, on or off stage. There are some reasons why eye contact is hard to make even for grown adult in the society. Most common reason is that people are afraid to be judged. When you look into someone eyes, you can basically see what they think of your from how their faces react to your presentation. Hence, this is why some people are so afraid at making eye contact, it’s the deep-rooted anxiety that crawls up, saying that they aren’t doing good enough while delivering their speeches.
To get a clear idea of the issue, we gathered some students from Ebright Public Speaking and asked them about why eye contact is so scary to them in a video. You can watch said video below!
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One of the students shared that some students are not ready to talk yet hence they do not know where to look to calm their nerves. It is true when you aren’t prepared fully for a speech, you will tend to look down or look up in hopes to find something written on the floor or the ceiling. Jokes aside, it is common for children to not be ready to speak and in return shy away from talking in the future because of the very same reason. Public speaking isn’t only about talking in front, it is also displaying your confidence to a live audience. Keeping eye contact makes it seem like you have authority of what you’re saying, therefore, people will be more likely to believe and listen to you.
Some said students are scared of making eye contact because there are so many people watching them, therefore, this feeling or this fear of making a mistake is prevalent. This is true as shared in earlier paragraph, most people are afraid of what others think of them. By looking away from people, they won’t need to see what their audience is currently thinking. Even though that might sound like a good idea to you, it is certainly not! Losing eye contact won’t pass you as a great public speaker. How are you going to be one when you can’t even own up to your mistakes and learn from it?
Lastly, one student talked about people not used to talk in front of a large audience. Of course, when it is your first time talking to a huge audience, you will feel shy and foreign. Losing eye contact is inevitable sometimes but you can definitely control it with more practice! For starters, stand in front of a mirror and talk to yourself face to face. Make sure you are looking directly in your eyes and start having conversation. Practice how to make your eye contact look more natural by reciting your speech to yourself in the mirror. With enough practice, there will certainly be progress! As the saying goes, practice makes perfect.
That concludes the end of the sharing session by some of the students in Ebright Public Speaking! Again, do give the video a watch to see the students talk about why eye contact is so scary to most students.
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