The Art Of Public Speaking

Even a seasoned professional speechman who won’t have at least a few nervous butterflies before they talk, I don’t know a single person. But I know there is also a great difference between a few excited butterflies and paralysing terror. Let’s review some of the main areas of implementation and strategy and offer you practise and improvements.

Eye contact

When it comes to public speaking, eye contact can be tough and difficult to maintain. But eye contact allows people to have confidence in you. If you’re afraid to make eye contact, here are some exercises to try to get correct.

First, by scanning the upper heads in the room, make “eye contact.” If you have 25 plus rooms, the only people who know that they are not in direct touch with them are the one you look at and possibly the one next to them. Then graduate to the front. Come to the front and work your way to the eyes slowly. This is systemic desensitisation.

If you feel like that you are an eye contact pro, look at the video and see which side of the room you prefer. Note that and begin to adapt progressively to balance things out.

Statement and pronunciation

How you communicate and speak words is critical because people must understand you. However, if you get somewhat anxious, you will likely talk faster and faster before you say well and your consistency will suffer. Your audience won’t hear anything you say and you won’t be as successful as possible. There are many ways to help with your statement and pronunciation.

Display your teeth first! The mouth must be open and air pipes clear to get the sound out. So if you start speaking too fast, think about revealing some of your teeth (in other words, open your mouth a little wider). Watch yourself talking in a mirror if you’re not sure if you do this. Better still, set up a camera and record in a conversation or video chat.

The second tip relates to pronunciation. I learned in a music class that the musicians with lyrics can understand have something in common – they clearly pronounce the consonants, especially the final consonant of each phrase. Try it….. Try it. Say “world” loudly without concentrating on the final “d” in your sentence. Now say it simply when pronouncing the last “d.” Practice for other words in your mind (or even better, out loud). You’re going to find it makes a difference.

Paralanguage

Paralinguis is anything but the words of your vocabulary. This is your pace, your tone and your pitch. The rate is the pace you’re talking to. The tone is your voice’s relative volume – are you loud or soft? The pitch is your voice’s natural height – think high notes and low notes. The three together transmit sentiment, trust and power during a lecture.

Effective paralanguage is like a coaster with vocal rollers. You have peaks and lows, turns and turns, loops and straights on an excellent amusement park coaster. Also, a good speech should have changes in rates, tone and pitch.

No one wants to hear a monotonous speaker. You know the person who stands behind the podium, speaks flatly all the time (think Ben Stein’s voice for a whole speech, except for Ben Stein, who can substitute the business owner or salesman). Yikes! Yikes!

Non-verbal obstacles

The use of space is essential in your presentation. Most people take their place at face value — what they see is what they get — or walk into a room, see a podium and gravitate immediately.

Don’t do this immediately! Assess the room in order to see what kind of obstacle between you and your audience, and how you can make better use of the space to your benefit. Assess the climate and the bed. Figure out how best to communicate and deliver from a connection point, not a power point. Don’t set your audience and you needless nonverbal barriers.

Movement and gestures

With the exception of a few exceptional speakers, most speakers are not perfectly at their best. It is difficult to transmit emotion if the body is in a static place rigidly. Here is what you can do. What you can do.

Make sure your vocabulary and expressions are associated with them. If you list and add gestures, ensure that the numbers you say match the number of fingers you carry. If you can move around the room or the stage, make sure your movements are deliberate. Don’t drive just for moving’s sake. Instead, step into a switch between points or stories or personages.

And don’t let your movements become a way for your body to escape nervous energy. Don’t be a dancing pacer, a dancing hula, a weight shifter or a tapper. When it’s normal and intentional, move and gesture.

Tips for quick practice

The only way to better the audience is to get out and do it! Then take it to the video to check the delivery style.

First record the presentation with audio to practise before a presentation. Take care of the paralingual language and enunciation and pronunciation. Note the feeling, too. Is your speech emotional? If not, concentrate on developing it.

Related: How to improve networking

Secondly, record a video practical presentation. Then watch the video silently. This makes you aware of the motions and gestures of your body. You will see if through your eyes and body posture you prefer one side of the room or another.

Finally, watch the sound video. You pull it all together and see what others see and hear so that you can better.

Also Read: Time To Change Your Current Job…

The Entrepreneurs Diaries is now available on Telegram. Join our telegram channel to get instant updates from TED.