“Shrinking your speech monster using your superpowers”: Addressing students’ concerns about public speaking while developing strategies to reduce speech anxiety

Public speaking can be very daunting, and students can experience immense anxiety. A little nervousness is acceptable, as it demonstrates how much a student cares about their speech performance. However, when nervousness overpowers confidence, students feel overly stressed and worried. Consequently, it affects students’ confidence levels, and they feel unprepared for their speeches. In this arts-based activity, students draw their speech-related reasons or concerns through metaphors to make sense of their speech anxiety. All students are different, so their concerns about their speeches are also distinct. Therefore, our activity does not provide a generalized or top-down solution to reduce speech anxiety. Instead, it allows students to think about their concerns about their speech, and offers agency in developing strategies to reduce speech anxiety based on their concerns/worries.Courses Public Speaking, Speech and Debate, Introduction to Communication, and Business Communication.Objectives The objectives of this activity are: (1) to identify students’ specific concerns about giving a speech; (2) to increase students’ agency in developing strategies to mitigate their concerns about their speeches; and (3) to assist students in developing a plan to increase confidence in delivering speeches both in the classroom and in public-speaking situations (seminar or webinar).