I have completed all my ten CTM speeches and earned the title of compotent toastmaster. It has been a long way since I joined the toastmaster club at work. Most of my friends at work think spending an hour in toastmaster meeting and preparing mock speeches is a waste of time. I found I had learn a lot in process experience. I couldn’t say I am a very good speaker now. But comparing to a year ago, I have made some significant improvements. I think the most valuable thing I earn is confidence in public speaking. English is my second language and my english foundation is quite weak. I have to spend extra effort to get the message across when I am giving a speech. Grammer and prounciation is my still biggest challenage. Other than that, I have pretty much overcame stage fright and had reasonable skill in preparing a speech. I will keep participating in toastmaster, trying to finish the next level in a year. I havn’t decided what advance speaking skill I want to work on yet. I will probably pick the humorous speech manual and one other manual. I received a small pin and a certification for archeiving the CTM level, which I hang it in my cubicle. Becoming a CTM doesn’t give me as much joy as becoming a ski instructor or a P.Eng. However CTM is still a nice and useful decoration on my resume.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"