Public Speaking Skills
Public Speaking Skills
Public speaking skills just like any other skills are gained and polished through determination, persistence, patience, practice, and a lot of work and experience.
To be an effective speaker, you need to posses and hone the following public speaking skills.
1. Focused. “You get what you focused on.” In public speaking, your goal is to have a successful presentation, and to attain such success you should be an effective speaker, and to be so, you need to be focused. You need to put your mind, attention, body, and spirit into your speaking task. Do not be caught up by anything that goes outside your speech, anything that may disrupt you. You may have personal problems at the moment but just like what my choir teacher taught me, “you can not do anything about it right now, so focus on what you’re supposed to do and leave all distractions aside.”
2. Fluent in the language used. The word fluent is defined as: able to speak or write smoothly, easily, or readily. The smoothness, easiness, and readiness when speaking is a must. You should have a good command of the language you are to use in public speaking. Use the language you are most comfortable with. But this still depends on the setting or of your public speaking task. If it is an English class, of course you need to present your speech in English.
3. Powerful. You should be a powerful speaker, powerful in speech and in appearance for you to be able to create an impact or good effect on your audience. A speaker with not enough force is like a physically weak carpenter banging a nail with a hammer. Your message will not sink in like the nail which failed to be drilled into concrete. Sometimes your audience could be as ‘hard” as such concrete.
4. Convictional. This public speaking skill is the twin sister of “powerful.” They should go together. Even if you are powerful and display an agreeable force or strength if your audience sees a loop hole because you are lacking something — the appearance of being convinced, you are still half effective. If you want your audience to believe in your message, you should initially evoke a sense of conviction. Among these public speaking skills, this is the most difficult to possess and enhance, because you can not fake this, unlike being powerful. In a way you can sound and look powerful without much effort.
5. Prepared. This public speaking skill should come in handy before and during your public speaking assignment. Way before your presentation, prepare. And prepare well. During your speech, you should likewise be prepared specially for unexpected circumstances. Be prepared to answer questions to be thrown at you, if it was an interactive presentation. Be prepared in handling technical disruptions. Some speakers are too caught up by this kind of interruption that it triggers nervousness. Sometimes they can even be “lost” in their speech specially if it was a memorized speech. Be prepared in instances your memory may fail you. Be prepared to adlib; and make sure your audience do not notice you were startled. It is ok to be alarmed by such untoward happening, but make sure your audience could not tell. But the best thing to do is to expect the unexpected so you will not be caught unaware. Be prepared.
(Aside from these public speaking skills, use also some public speaking tools that would better your speech delivery)
You can not just go up the stage, grab the microphone, and deliver a speech, you need to have public speaking skills. Otherwise you will most probably make a huge mess or fail to accomplish your purpose of speaking.
You will have much of an advantage if you first work hard to gain and develop these public speaking skills.
Categories: Public Speaking Tags: public speaking skills, speech, speech delivery, speech improvement
5 Don’ts in Public Speaking
Here are some things you need to avoid in public speaking.
1.Don’t be timid.
Wilma Cruz-Tapalla in her book Public Speaking and Personality Development says it perfectly: “The timid individual always suffers from the illusion that everyone is seeking to criticize his faults. Timidity makes him self-conscious and awkward – awkward in carriage, awkward in speech, awkward in expression.” Do not be too conscious that your every action comes crazily calculated. Granted, you are afraid to commit mistakes but the irony is, the more you act too carefully the more you tend to make errors. An antidote to this is the mind set that everyone stumbles in their speeches once in awhile and that it is ok to make tolerable mistakes.
2.Don’t laugh at your mistakes.
In public speaking, giggling at your mistakes is like a self-destructing act. My choir teacher back in college told us that when you laugh at your mistake in the middle of a presentation, it is like announcing to the crowd: “I messed up!” It is like putting your own index finger and thumb resembling the shape of the letter “L” on your forehead. It does nothing but worsen the harm done. One good thing to do is maintain your composure and your confidence and go on with your speech. Apologizing for mistakes that are tiny enough for your audience to understand is unnecessary. Except perhaps for mispronouncing a name of, let’s say, a very important guest.
3. Don’t talk monotonously.
When the tone and volume of your voice barely changes, you are in monotone and are therefore boring. In public speaking, the volume of your voice should be changing; amplified to convey strong points; softened to evoke ideas of calmness, peace, subtleness, gentleness, aloneness or the like. It is unnecessary to talk with a loud voice the whole duration of your public speaking engagement. You will just come out annoying. Your voice should be loud enough for the last person sitting or standing at the last row to hear you properly and clearly. There should also be an attitude in your voice. This is where tone gets in. If a line in your speech suggests emotions like sadness, depression, anger, sympathy, disappointment, joy or any humanly feelings, then your audience should know it basically by the tone of your voice. Your tone should match that what you are actually saying.
4. Don’t over do your gestures.
Gestures are done for emphasis. Do not try to put a designated motion to every idea in your speech. Overdoing is not emphasis at all.
Arsenia B. Tan in his book Public Speaking and Speech Improvement said:
…every gesture should be a part of the whole body reaction to the thought presented: hence, every gesture and thought should be one only…gestures spontaneously created must be an integral part of communication. Otherwise, if the gesture represents one thing and the voice says another, then no meaning is seen by the audience and the purpose is lost.
If gestures are not needed for a certain moment then put your hands in a rest on your side.
5. Don’t be stationary.
You need to move, unless you are speaking in an intensely formal setting and supposed to stand behind a fixed podium. Being still majority of the time, worse, the whole time, could suggests timidity which was earlier expressed as a no-no. Moving around while speaking is a good exercise for your audience’s eyes. One way also to regain their attention – when you move, their eyes follow you. When you notice a certain area in the crowd is becoming inattentive or noisy, slowly move towards that area and be surprised with the result. Make sure your move is not so intimidating. Remember that public speaking is more on pleasing and satisfying your audience, not making them uncomfortable in anyway.
Categories: Public Speaking Tags: public speaking tips, speech delivery, speech improvement, tip in public speaking
How to write a good speech
How to write a good speech
Writing a speech is like writing any journalistic article. It is actually a kind of feature article. Regardless of what kind of speech you need to write, remember the three basic parts: Introduction, Body, and Conclusion.
INTRODUCTION:
In journalism, the introduction is referred to as the lead; and there is this basic canon to “Start with a bang and end with a bang!” This also applies in writing a speech. Though speeches usually start with a greeting, it should still have the same strong impact. The next few sentences after the greetings are still part of the Introduction.
Here are some tips that will help you write a good speech introduction.
1. Telling a story at the start of your speech always works. This still depends on how you write or rewrite a story. Stories like anecdotes, fables, parables, or personal short stories will do.
2. Good quotations could also catch your audience’s attention. A Biblical verse, a quote from a book, poem, or any literature, a line from a movie, or a direct quotation will serve you well.
3. Have them imagine something. Tickle their imagination. It’s good to have their minds working at the beginning of your speech; one way to catch their attention.
4. Give a simple activity. This depends on the setting of your speaking engagement and the type of speech you will deliver. This may not work for formal or memorized speeches. This works best if your audience is within your reach, and that if you could actually see them. For example, you could ask them to touch their nose or ears with their tongue emphasizing a point that some things seem very easy to do and yet actually impossible. Of course simple activities you would make your audience execute should be within your speech’s topic. Make it fun and relevant.
5. Cracking a joke is not recommended; humor your audience instead. This will be an amusing way to start your speech.
6. Ask a question.
BODY:
The following are some tips that will help you write a good speech body.
1. The body of your speech serves the same as the body of any journalistic article. It builds up, adds up to, elaborates, explains, or emphasizes, the thoughts laid out in the introduction. Most often than not, the body is the longest part of your speech.
2. Write the body as a strong connection of the introduction and the conclusion.
CONCLUSION:
Here are some tips that will help you write a good speech conclusion.
1. Just like what was mentioned. “…end with a bang!” The impact made in the introduction should equal that with the conclusion, or even stronger.
2. Ask a question. Leave something to your audience to think or ponder about. Intrigue them. Sometimes it’s unnecessary to answer a question you have brought out in the conclusion. Let your audience answer it themselves, silently.
3. If you asked an intriguing question in your introduction, this is the best time to lay down answers.
4. You could go back to the thought you have stressed out in the introduction and paraphrase it in your conclusion or reemphasize it. In feature writing this is called the Circle Style.
5. A good and strong quote will also work.
Tip: Your experiences will greatly count. A good public speaker should be generally a good story teller, hence he should have a lot of good stories to tell.You need more than writing skills and helpful tips in order to write a good speech.
Categories: Speech Writing Tags: speech delivery, speech improvement, speech writing, writing tips
KSS Center holds Public Speaking and Speech Improvement Summer Camp
The students of the Public Speaking and Speech Summer Camp
The SERVITO’s KSS Learning Center held a Public Speaking and Speech Summer Camp for students and adults last May 25-28, 2010.
The said program which was the first of its kind in the town of Calasiao was attended by six eager students; where they learned English phonetics, how to improve their pronunciation, diction, accent,and intonation. They were also taught how to gain and build self-confidence, and overcome fear specially when speaking in public. Proper speech delivery which included appropriate hand and body gestures, facial expressions, and rapport building, was likewise discussed.
The four-day camp was highlighted by an exciting practicum where the enrollees delivered speeches in front of an audience which included their lecturers Maria Dolour Servito-Navarra and Journa Liz Servito-Ramirez who are both graduates of Communications & Journalism at the Brigham Young University-Hawaii.
Maria Dolour Servito-Navarra, as she discusses intonation
The next Speech Improvement and Public Speaking Program is scheduled on July 10- Aug. 21, Saturday classes only.
The students of the Public Speaking and Speech Summer Camp as they receive their certificates of successful completion together with their lecturers. (From L-R: Maria Dolour Servito Navarra, Jerald Maningding, Reywelle Bravo, Janine Quinto, Darwin dela Cruz) not in photo: Lance Stephan Parayno and Sarah Camille Cuyan
PHOTO GALLERY:
with Lance Stephan Parayno
with Janine Quinto
with Reywelle Bravo
with Darwin dela Cruz
with Jerald Maningding
Categories: KSS News Tags: gain confidence, overcome fear of public speaking, public speaking, speech delivery, speech improvement