I recently, in my Language Arts class, gave a TED talk. No, not a “real” one, where I studied for years and then gave a twenty minute talk — I gave about a five minute one, and I studied for a few weeks. And my audience was my Language Arts class. However, it was definitely still hard and nerve-racking — and here’s the process it took for me to finally give my TED talk.
At first, I watched a lot of TED talks. (As in a LOT OF TED TALKS.) After that, I tried to chose a topic I was interested in. I couldn’t really seem to find a topic I was truly interested in and connected to, but a classmate gave me the idea of doing it on how learning a second language affects your brain. This connected to me, because I used to go to a bilingual school where I spoke and learned in English and Spanish, and it was interesting, so I decided to do that.
And so I did research. And did research. And more research. This was really because I kept finding information, but it kept being the wrong information, information that would help me. It took me a while, but finally I felt prepared enough to make my presentation. I made it, felt unsatisfied, edited it, edited it, and edited it some more.
After I felt satisfied with it, I started presenting it to my friend. She gave me advice, and so I edited. I presented it a lot of times to her, and that really helped.
And so then I presented! (I actually presented yesterday, or May 27th 2021, to be precise.) I was really nervous throughout the entire thing, but I tried to speak slowly and clearly, and I tried not to make it confusing, and hopefully I achieved that.
And that was the process! It was stressful, but it definitely payed off in the end.