'CONNECT' 57 - Tips on Public Speaking - Prepare and Prepare....

Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.

Vince Lombardi

Practice, practice, practice....

There is a lot of truth in the saying 'practice makes a man perfect'. Your performance in any event is decided by the amount of practice you put in. It applies to public speaking also.

The following tips will be useful to you:

Ø  Once the written matter of what you are going to speak is final, go through the same several times aloud to check if all the parts have come out well. Check the introduction, the body and the conclusion.

Ø  Is the material interesting? Can you make it even better?

Ø  Is it easy to read and understand? Are there any complicated words?

Ø  If you are going to make use of visuals, are they relevant?

Ø  Practice your speech several times before a friendly audience such as your friends and relatives and ask them to comment critically.

Ø  Speak in front of a mirror and notice your facial expression and gestures.

Ø  Record your voice and listen to notice how it sounds, the diction, the pronunciation, inflection, emphasis etc.

Ø  After listening to it several times, polish the same with necessary final correction.

If the event is very important, it will be useful to give a 'dress rehearsal' under conditions very close to the main event!

N C Sridharan

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'CONNECT' 56 - Tips on Public Speaking - Be the audience

It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.

Walter Lippmann

Becoming the audience yourself!

Sometimes you would have delivered an excellent speech; you would have given enough stories and jokes. You may also be very satisfied. But the key issue is: how about the audience?

You should know that your audience have some specific expectations from you. You need to know clearly what the audience want from your speech. Your primary goal is to connect with what they want. While writing the specific purpose of your speech, you should have this perspective in your mind. This is called 'audience adaptation'.

You could ask the following critical questions to yourself before your speech:

• Who are my audience?
• If I were my own audience, what will I expect from the speaker?
• Will my jokes be relevant to my audience?
• Will my stories and anecdotes be interesting to them?
• What pace will be comfortable to my audience?
• During the entire process of my delivery, will my audience be interested in my speech?

Compare the role of a shoe salesman. When a customer enters his showroom, he should show what the customer wants and not what all he has! Understanding this and delighting the customer is the art of salesmanship. This principle applies to public speaking also!

NC Sridharan

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'CONNECT' 55 - Tips on Public Speaking - Structuring Your Speech

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Sir Francis Bacon

Structuring your speech

You need to be very focused in structuring your speech. For this you have to be clear what you want to convey and to whom. It will be a good idea to divide your speech into three part: the topic, the general purpose and the specific purpose. For this you should take into account the context and the profile of the audience before whom you are going to deliver your speech.

For example, if you are called by a school management to address a group of teenage students on the ill effects of social media. You can structure your speech as follows:

Topic: Facebook

General Purpose: To inform

Specific Purpose: To inform the students on the ill effects of the Facebook if they are

                           not careful while sharing their personal information.  

Again you have to be very specific as to whom you are going to speak to - boys or girls. This means you will end up preparing two completely different speeches, one for the boys and another for the girls. What you share with the girls will be completely irrelevant to the girls.

Once you are clear about this aspects, then you can write down your speech. You would have delivered a very meaningful speech!

NC Sridharan

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'CONNECT' 48 - Tips on Public Speaking

Impromptu Speech

It's beauty that captures your attention; personality which captures your heart.

 Oscar Wilde

There may be occasion when you may have to deliver a speech with little or no preparation. This is called impromptu speech. For example, you be attending a function such as a farewell party, birthday, wedding day etc. You may be asked to 'say a few words'.

When such an occasion presents itself, don't panic. On such occasions, people do not expect you to present a perfect speech. More often than not you will be able to anticipate such occasions given the context of the occasion and how your profile.  In anticipation, you may notice and take note of what others are saying which will be useful when you have to deliver the impromptu speech.

Here are some tips to deliver an impromptu speech:

• Say what you are going to say, say what you have to say and say what you said. This will be a useful structure for your speech.
• Don't feel stressed. Wear a pleasant smile on your face. Be your own natural self. Make eye contact.
• Avoid rambling and mumbling.
• Be informal and easy. Give some jokes, share a story or an experience.

Impromptu speech is an important personality trait which will decide your image.

NC Sridharan

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'CONNECT' 25: Tips on Public Speaking...Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel'

'Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel'

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The purpose of communication is to bring about a change in the mental state of the person or the group of persons with whom we communicate. It is said that only 7% of the communication takes place through words and the 'soft aspects' of communication decide the quality of communication much more than the words.

One of the tools to make public speaking effective is 'emphasis'.

When we read a written document some words are in italics, some words are bold, some words are underlined and some words carry a '.....' mark to draw our attention to those words. Some people also use highlighters to draw our attention. These are the key words which convey the meaning and the context of the message. These words convey the intent of the communicator.

When it comes to oral communication, especially in public speaking, we use 'emphasis' by stressing some words, by using different tonality and pitch when we pronounce those words.

Correct emphasis may change the meaning. For example, ‘Thank you very much’  can be stated in a flat voice. The same be said ‘Thank you very much’, with proper emphasis on the word 'very' to make it more personal.

More about emphasis in the next newsletter.

NC Sridharan

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'CONNECT' 19 - Tips on Public Speaking - Tongue exercises

The tongue is the only tool that gets sharper with use.

Washington Irving

In a gym you will see people stretching and flexing their muscles to make it more supple. The same principle applies to our tongue. We have to make our tongue stronger, flexible and supple. There are some exercises to achieve this.

Here are some.

Tightly close your lips and extend your tongue all the way to the upper right molar teeth and move tongue in circle all the way through the upper and lower lips through the  left molar teeth. Do this three times to and fro. Repeat the exercise couple of times. Do it gently so that it causes no pain.

Close the mouth, push the tip of the tongue all the way sideways and touch the right molar teeth and move the tongue to the left and again to the right as fast as you can. Do it five times.

Stretch and protrude the tongue out as much as possible and retract the tongue all the way inside and touch the pallet of the mouth. Do it fast out and in five times.

Close your lips as tight as possible and push your tongue as forcefully as you can through the lips.

These exercises will improve the quality of diction and articulation.

N C Sridharan

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