Public Speaking Courses | Tips for Public Speaking
© 2010 www.publicspeakingcourses-
Use a strong introduction. This will grip the audience and hold their attention for at least the first few minutes of your talk.
Use plenty of eye contact and almost over-
Use pauses to bring back wandering attention, this always works well.
PREPARATION
Rehearse but don’t over-
You must avoid learning and delivering your speech exactly as prepared, it will sound false and will limit your scope for spontaneity, a key element of all successful speeches.
Public speaking courses will cover this aspect of a good presentation.
A good course will teach you ways to brainstorm ideas, then how to take those ideas and turn them into an outline which will assist your preparation. The use of stories is a fundamental technique that any good course should cover.
Create Outlines of Your Talk
Brainstorming Ideas
Preparing Stories for Impact
Public speaking courses can help you improve your skills when speaking or making presentations to groups of people.
The course reviewed above uses powerful techniques that will help you excel at public speaking.
PUBLIC SPEAKING TIPS
Keep calm while speaking
When to pause for effect
Read your audience
Non verbal communication. When considering rehearsal many people forget about the importance of non verbal communication.
When what you are saying aligns well with your body language your speech will be so much more convincing. This key skill should be covered in your chosen public speaking course.
PUBLIC SPEAKING COURSES
IMPROVE YOUR PUBLIC SPEAKING SKILLS
IMPROVE YOUR SKILLS
Public speaking courses are excellent for anyone who must regularly speak in front of others, or who will have to at some point in the future.
Everyone from book authors to teachers and business seekers can benefit from a good course in presentation skills.
Even though most of us don’t have to speak in public very often, the chances that we will have to at some point are very high, and having a course under our belts to help us perform with grace, style and poise will be very helpful when we step in front of that crowd.
A lot of people feel a sense of horror at having to speak in public, I'm sure you are no different or you wouldn't be reading this!
It has often been said that the fear of public speaking can be even stronger than the fear of death. This means that the majority of people who are afraid of speaking in public would literally rather die than have to engage in public speaking!
That’s a pretty powerful emotion, don’t you agree!
The reason so many people are afraid is because they are worried about embarrassing themselves. They have visions of looking or sounding stupid, not knowing what they’re talking about, or being challenged by an audience member and not having any good reply.
Embarrassment is a huge social deterrent, because it has a stigma associated with it. Even if no one else thinks you did badly on your speech, you will feel stigmatised if YOU feel you did badly, and it can have wide ranging negative consequences for your social life, friendships, and working relationships.
You are one of a growing number of people who want to improve their prospects by taking public speaking courses. Unfortunately however you will also find multiple individuals and organizations provide training and courses on public speaking. By this I mean that it can be very confusing and difficult to choose the right course.
My own preference is for online training using video and audio, this way you can replay as many times as needed.
As an aspiring public speaker, what are the things you need to look out for and consider when searching for the right course and training? How would you know if you are taking up the right course or not? Well here are some of the basic things you have to look out for.
First, you have to be aware that some courses on public speaking are based mostly from books, theories and other people’s subjective experiences. My advice is that you have to look for a training course that will help improve your uniqueness, your individuality; a course that will recognize your own thought processes and creativity, and not something simply based on books or theory.
Remember, you are unique, and as such will, or at least in my opinion should, develop your own style of public speaking, that is how you will be best remembered.
The next thing you need to look out for is over complexity, avoid it like the plague! There are courses and training seminars that are too complicated to easily understand and learn from, too many rules, dos and don’ts, and in the end you are so afraid to test your own unique approach that you can often take a backwards step. Forget about those over complicated courses.
As long as you are saying the right things without blatantly offending anyone, presentations should go smoothly for you.
Look for a course that will boost your confidence and enthusiasm. If you think that the course is focusing too much on telling you things that must not be done, it means you are already focusing on the negative aspects of public speaking. That’s not what any training course should do for you. In short, you need to look for a course that will help you become an optimistic speaker.
A good speaking course should help improve the level of your self confidence. It should be able to allow you to develop your own style, whilst keeping you within certain proven parameters and guidelines.
It’s okay to make mistakes; people are not perfect. No one can tell you that you won’t succeed, even if you fail at your first attempts at public speaking. Therefore look for a course that will instil the confidence in you that you can do it!
Fail as many times as you want, however make sure you have the opportunity to learn from that failure by knowing what you need to correct. This is where video training excels over attending a seminar. Keep focused without putting yourself down in any shape or form!
By using this approach and adopting this attitude, before you know it you will be standing in front of professionals, students, politicians, you name it!
Don’t give up trying; you will definitely nail it with the right support. Thus, the first thing that you need to do is to look out for courses that will nurture that passionate public speaker already within you!
See more points below on what you should be expecting from any good public speaking course and the importance of good presentation skills in general.
Know How to Rehearse
A tip to improve your public speaking is to ensure that you keep the audience attention, keep them awake and interested! How can you do this? Ask them questions, or challenge them.
Give them situations to respond to that will stimulate their mind. However don’t go overboard with this technique or you may make them feel intimidated.
When speaking you should try to be a least a little creative, even in formal situations you don’t always have to be rigidly formal and over elegant in appearance, you can drop in a few points of humour during the speech, or tell stories that could further capture the heart of your listeners, by this I mean try to appeal to emotions as well as imparting facts.
However do ensure, you return to the main point of your speech, having used the humour to lighten the way and to emphasise your main points.
Public speaking courses will, or at least should cover many more points in relation to negating fear from affecting your performance.
BE CREATIVE
Connection with your audience is key. It is the unspoken link and feelings between you and your audience. You need to build connection with your audience members as part of your public speaking skill.
The more you make eye contact with your audience the more you get the feeling that people are really listening to you.
Consequently, people who are making eye contact with you in return, will become more 'attached' to you, and hooked on whatever you are saying. This is an easily learned skill and one that I recommend you pay attention to.
PUBLIC SPEAKING TIPS
Many people ask me for public speaking tips. Usually my first piece of advice is to seek out a reputable course. Courses will give you tips to find out from both your own and the previous errors of other speakers.
Do you remember the last time you spoke in public? What were your thoughts and how did you feel in those circumstances?
Did you experience any discomfort or any embarrassing moments? Why do you think this happens anytime you speak in public? Have you ever thought of solutions that could help you overcome some of these fears of public speaking?
There are answers to such problems. You are one of many people who want to improve their technique in relation to speaking in public. What are some of the public speaking tips you need to know in order to become a winning public speaker?
During training it is recognised that panic is one of the reasons why potential speakers fail in their first attempts. For this reason many speakers get lost for words and lose their clearness of thought process, as a result audiences lose touch with what they are attempting to say, I’m sure you’ve felt this, I definitely did in my early days of public speaking.
When you focus properly it means you avoid having your attention drawn to issues that would make you more anxious or nervous, for example thoughts that the audience might not like your speech, or feeling every bead of sweat dropping from your chin, these things may well happen, however focusing on them will push you into a viscous circle of anxiety and fear. This will result in an inability to think coherently, at which point you’ve lost it!
Another useful tip to improve your presentation skill is to keep the audience attention, keep them awake and interested! How can you do this? Ask them questions, or challenge them. Give them situations to respond to that will stimulate their mind. However don’t go overboard with this technique or you may make them feel intimidated.
You should also have eye contact across the group, specifically though, choose a friendly looking face and use this as positive feedback for yourself, this works a treat. It works wonders in building your self confidence during speaking when you see two or three people listening attentively, looking cheery and making eye contact with you.
When speaking you should try to be a least a little creative, even in formal situations you don’t always have to be rigidly formal and over elegant in appearance, you can drop in a few points of humour throughout the speech, or tell stories that could further capture the heart of your spectators, by this I mean try to appeal to emotions as well as giving out useful facts.
Nevertheless do ensure you return to the most important point of your speech, having used the humour to lighten the way and to emphasise your most important points.
Public speaking courses will, or at least should cover many more speaking tips in relation to preventing fear from ruining your presentation.
One of the simplest tips I was ever taught in respect of overcoming fear, was “you should focus”. Focus on what? You should focus completely on the point you are trying to make, nothing else!
A good instructor will teach you to focus. This is the single most effective thing
you can do to improve your public speaking abilities and to lose your fear of doing
it. If you focus, you will be single-
People who focus don’t have time to be nervous or worried about their speech. They are calm and poised throughout. They are unmovable. They are also better able to engage the audience and keep the attention of the audience, because they will naturally involve the audience in the speech by asking questions, talking animatedly, and using interesting anecdotes and examples in their discussions. Public speaking courses teach you all of this and more. If you want to become a pro at talking in front of an audience, look for a class that teaches these things.
Ensure that when you are seeking out the best public speaking course that you check which speaking tips you will learn. Many courses do not go into enough depth, so choose wisely.
WHAT MAKES A GOOD PUBLIC SPEECH
I'm often asked, what makes a good public speech. Put yourself in the position of
a member of the audience. What would you want from it, what would you not want, what
would make you feel enthusiastic during the speech and what points would you be most
likely to remember and why?
For a start you wouldn’t want to be bored by too many facts during the speech. A small number of interesting facts help make the point but if the speaker goes on too much and tries to impress with the amount of facts he or she can convey, then they usually pretty quickly lose the attention of the audience. Don’t let this happen to you.
When you are preparing your public speech, gather approximately 3 or 4 main points or facts that you really want to stick in the listeners mind.
Generally speaking a good tip for winning people round to your way of thinking during your speech is to talk about and illustrate why its not so good for things to stay the way they are. By this I mean that you should briefly present the problem to the group and then follow up immediately with how that problem could be resolved.
People don’t want to listen to problems and negativity for too long, but it does however help to put your positive points in context.
Try to gain the interest and enthusiasm of the audience by involving them in your talk. Ask a few simple questions, engage people, they will remember your speech long after, if they have been an active participant.
Finish on a positive note, summarizing what you have already said. You should again, near the end, summarise the problem briefly, but then go on to summarise your 3 or 4 point solution to that problem.
Leave people with the impression that they have just listened to someone they can trust to come up with solutions.
You can learn this type of approach using a reputable course. You will also get the chance to practice different speech techniques to ensure that you achieve your objectives.
PUBLIC SPEAKING AND BODY LANGUAGE
Some examples of the use of body language in are, the way you speak, your body gestures, eye contact, using your hands and body for emphasising points or improving audience communication. Body language is something you need to work at, develop your own ways, style and creativity.
No one can tell you prescriptively what you are supposed to do. As such, as a public speaker you need simply be conscious of aspects like the volume of your voice, your body movements, and developing a sense of rapport with the audience. It is your connection with the audience that you must use body language to enhance.
See also: -
THE SECRET TO PUBLIC SPEAKING
Article Courtesy of Anna Tims The Guardian, Saturday 22 January 2011
Addressing a crowd need not be an ordeal – keep it simple, know your topic and remember the audience is on your side.
The opening scene of The King's Speech, in which the future George VI stammers through a public address, will resonate with anyone preparing their own oration. His humiliation unfolded before a packed Wembley Stadium; you might be steeling yourself to address your sales force in a draughty conference centre, but the challenges are the same – speakers must battle through nerves and apathy to enthral their audiences.
Public speaking is an art few master. Lifeless delivery might undermine riveting content; beguiling enunciation cannot disguise a deficient script. But there are some guidelines to help you present yourself convincingly.
"Most audiences are very much on the speaker's side until or unless you make a mess
of it," says Max Atkinson, author of Speech-
• Ditch the script.
Jot down salient points you wish to make – but Dale Carnegie, the self-
• Loosen up.
"People tend to stiffen up on the podium because they are expected to be an authority and so use impressive words," says Richard Heller, author of High Impact Speeches. Keep sentences short and words simple and try to sound conversational so that everyone thinks you are talking to them personally. Be yourself.
• Think in threes.
Stick to three main points with no more than three subsidiary points. "A list of three is the easiest for people to remember and gives automatic flow to any passage of words," says Heller. "It also lets you introduce surprise: the audience might think you'll go from A to B to C when you might rouse them with A to B to D."
• Dig deep.
Whatever the topic, research it in far more detail than you need. You'll speak with far more confidence, clarity and conviction if you have full mastery of the subject.
• Look them in the eye.
Eye contact is as vital for the speaker as for the audience. "It also exerts pressure on an audience to pay attention and will often elicit nods or smiles because the most basic tacit rule of audience behaviour is 'Thou shalt look attentive'," says Atkinson. "If you don't look around the audience, you'll never know how well or badly they're following you."
• See the funny side.
"Humour is a powerful weapon, not least because once people have laughed they'll listen closely to what comes next, hoping for more fun," says Atkinson. "A lot of people equate it with telling jokes, but most humour in speeches comes from examples and anecdotes, provided they are relevant and to the point."
• Beware PowerPoint.
"Most slides are verbal crutches for the speaker rather than visual aids for the audience," says Atkinson. "They typically include too much information and distract audiences by inviting them to read and listen at the same time. The most useful slides are pictorial aids that help the audience to understand the point."
• End your speech with impact.
A powerful finish can make up for any misadventures along the way. Every speech needs a destination and the last sentence must deliver a memorable punch. "It must be clear and engaging and positive rather than negative," says Heller.
Hypnosis is becoming more popular as a technique for improving your ability to deliver highly effective public speaking, and specifically to cure the fear of public speaking. You should consider exploring more on this technique. Used properly, and with a good teacher, you will find this one of the best ways to improve your performance in public.
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PUBLIC SPEAKING COURSES
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Public Speaking Courses | Tips for Public Speaking
© 2010 www.publicspeakingcourses-