the topic for an informative speech

[Salley]

Hi!
I need to give an informative speech about a specified suject about 4-6 minutes in my public speaking class.
Firstly,what's a specified subject?Are Gothic Cathedrals or movies specified subjects?
Besides,4-6minutes is really too long for me.Since we are English learners,
we can't totally understand each other,especially when giving speeches!As a result ,all my classmates will loose patient on me only after a couple of minutes,but I need to speak for 4-6 minutes.How can I attract them?what sudject should I choose?

[emsr2d2]

Hi!
I need to give an informative speech about a specified suject about 4-6 minutes in my public speaking class.
Firstly,what's a specified subject?Are Gothic Cathedrals or movies specified subjects?
Besides,4-6minutes is really too long for me.Since we are English learners,
we can't totally understand each other,especially when giving speeches!As a result ,all my classmates will loose patient on me only after a couple of minutes,but I need to speak for 4-6 minutes.How can I attract them?what sudject should I choose?

A specified (or specific) subject simply means that you have to talk about only one thing for the whole speech - you can't cover 2 or 3 topics in one speech.

4-6 minutes is not too long at all, especially for a public speaking class. I volunteer with an English immersion group, and after only 4 days, all the students have to give a 7-10 minute presentation on a topic of their choice. At the beginning, they always think this is too long, but normally they are still talking after 10 minutes and have to be stopped!

As far as a subject is concerned, choose something you are genuinely interested in - it will be much easier to speak about something you already know about and are enthusiastic about.

To keep their attention - make lots of eye contact, smile, sound friendly, be enthusiastic and don't panic!

[Barb_D]

You can be even more specific about Gothic cathedrals if you want, but you could probably cover some basic information about them. The idea of "movies" is too broad.

[Tdol]

Change the title a bit- An introduction to Gothic cathedrals.

[Salley]

Many thanks,emsr2d2,Barb_D and Tdol! But,still I have a tough problem,that is the new words!For example,if I want to give an introduce of Gothic cathedral,I must come to some new words like Gothic,cathedral,Cologne cathedral,Notre Dame...something like that.Such words are not jargot at all,and everyone know these.But when speaking in English ,I'm afraid that 90% of my classmate have no idea what the words mean.It really troubles me a lot!I just feel so hard to communicate(and I have same problem in understanding others too) .I think no matter what I introduce ,this problem will exist. Maybe if I talk about something all of us are very familiar ,they can understand me better,but it can be very boring! Like a classmates of mine talked about a traditional festival,which made me really sick.

[emsr2d2]

It's not going to be possible to choose a topic which will contain vocabulary that all the listeners will already know. The point of a public speaking class is (usually) to improve your confidence in speaking in front of a group - how you actually present it, as opposed to the specific content.

I assume that your teacher is either a native speaker, or speaks fluent English, so what is important is that he/she understands what you say. They should be concentrating on your actual presentation skills, your phrasing, grammar, movements, pronunciation and enunciation. The actual subject is almost irrelevant, but you need to be interested in the subject or you will sound bored, and that is a disaster when giving a presentation!

[Tdol]

Simplify things by talking about just one of the cathedrals.