'CONNECT' 27: Tipsmon Public Speaking: voice inflection

'It's not how strongly you feel about your topic. it's how strongly they feel about your topic after you speak'

Tim Salladay

It is true that we have been speaking from our childhood. Many of us think that since we have been speaking from when we were very young, we are good speakers. Just because we can run naturally, it does not mean we can compete in the Olympics! We need training for becoming a professional runner or speaker.

We can improve our inflection by doing some simple exercises. One way is to record your speech for one minute and listen to the same through your ear phone. Listening to your speech through the earphone will eliminate unnecessary noise when you listen to your own voice. In fact you can do this recording once a month and see your progress in effective public speaking.

Here's an exercise:

Keep a voice recorder and try this voice inflection exercise when you record your voice. Read the following sentence in your normal voice.

“Seetha did not show up for work this morning”

Now say the same sentence with ‘surprise’ in your voice.

Now make the same statement in a ‘casual’ voice.

Next, make it sound like a ‘secret’.

Turn it into a ‘question’.

Replay the recorded and see for yourself how differently you should speak when you speak with different feelings.

N C Sridharan

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