Foundations of Business Success: Public Speaking Learning Contract

This document is a learning contract created for the BUS201 Foundations of Business Success course, focusing on improving public speaking skills. The student identifies a need to enhance their presentation abilities and outlines a plan to achieve this goal. The contract includes a detailed exploration of learning objectives, strategies for skill development, and methods for self-assessment. The student plans to learn through online resources, focusing on planning speeches, interactive sessions, practice, confident body language, and analyzing previous speeches. The contract specifies a completion date and methods for evaluating the learning outcomes. The student also includes references to support the learning approach. This assignment is designed to help students develop their communication and self-management skills, which are essential for success in a business context. The student aims to improve their ability to express ideas confidently and effectively in professional settings. This learning contract demonstrates a commitment to self-improvement and a proactive approach to skill development. The student plans to complete the course by 3rd August 2018 and will evaluate their progress by appearing for assessment tasks and practicing in front of family members. The absence of a certificate is noted, but the student expresses confidence in their ability to perform according to the requirements of any presentation or communication.

Running head: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS SUCCESS
Foundations of Business Success: Public Speaking
Name of the university
Name of the student
Author note

1FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS SUCCESS: PUBLIC SPEAKING
1. What are you going to learn?
I wish to learn the skills of public speaking. Although, there is no regular necessity to
illustrate presentations in front of unfamiliar faces, still public speaking skills can help us to
grab better opportunities and lead our career to an excellent level. It can initiate better both
the social and business relationship (Esenwein 2013). Since my childhood, I had always been
maintaining a low profile and prefer not to initiate the conversation first. As a result, I feel
difficulties while interacting with unfamiliar people. However, in order to develop a
professional life and to sustain in a position it is very important to express the ideas with the
people I am working with. I want to learn the skills to get rid of my limitations as well as to
deliver my knowledge and ideas with confidence.
2. How are you going to learn it?
I have realised that there are numerous websites, which offer online courses on this
topic and website contents written on how I can recover my issues (Boromisza-Habashi,
Hughes and Malkowski 2016). I decided to opt for an online programme of one day.
Strategies are as follows (Chollet et al. 2015).
 At first, planning is essential before delivering speech before audiences. The
speaker has to be prepare for every session and for every unpredictable
questions as well. Planning will help to handle the queries and complete the
speech with ease and confidence.
 An interactive session may help to engage with the audiences. It is important
to have control on the nerves while speaking otherwise, it will affect the
speech and the audience may sense the discomfort of the speaker. Audiences

2FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS SUCCESS: PUBLIC SPEAKING
will understand the topic easily if the speaker make them understand by
clarifying the key points.
 Practicing before going for the session is actually helpful. Speakers can
imagine themselves before a mock audience and always practice for
betterment.
 A confident body language while delivering the speech is another way to make
a flawless appearance before the audiences. Instead of standing behind the
podium if the speaker uses gestures like walking around and paying attention
to every single queries then the session will become more interactive and will
feel engaged to the session.
 Watching or listening to the previous speeches can help to identify the errors
and rectify them too.
3. Date of completion
The course will be completed on 3rd august, 2018.
4. How are you going to know you have learned it?
There are certain ways of evaluation to check whether I am prepare for public
speaking or not. Following the instruction of the course, I have appeared for an assessment
task provided by that website as well as I have practiced it several times in front of my family
members to recover my limitations. Although, there is a question that if I can perform well in
front of unfamiliar audiences. However, I hope I can implement the strategies whatever I
have learnt.

3FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS SUCCESS: PUBLIC SPEAKING
5. How are you going to prove that you have learnt it?
As the online course was free, I am unable to attach any certificate (Jaggars 2014).
Yet, I hope I can perform according to the requirements while the demonstration of any
presentation or communication.

4FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS SUCCESS: PUBLIC SPEAKING
References
Boromisza-Habashi, D., Hughes, J.M. and Malkowski, J.A., 2016. Public speaking as cultural
ideal: Internationalizing the public speaking curriculum. Journal of International and
Intercultural Communication, 9(1), pp.20-34.
Chollet, M., Wörtwein, T., Morency, L.P., Shapiro, A. and Scherer, S., 2015, September.
Exploring feedback strategies to improve public speaking: an interactive virtual audience
framework. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive
and Ubiquitous Computing (pp. 1143-1154). ACM.
Esenwein, J.B., 2013. The Art of Public Speaking. Read Books Ltd.
Jaggars, S.S., 2014. Choosing between online and face-to-face courses: Community college
student voices. American Journal of Distance Education, 28(1), pp.27-38.