There are many things you can do to ensure that your verbal messages are
understood time and time again.
It is possible for
public speaking to be fun and hugely satisfying. Once
you'e enjoyed a presentation, or even part of it, your self confidence will get
a huge boost and you'll be off and running! Give yourself the best chance by
using the exercises and tips on this page. Good luck!
Body language is important. Standing, walking or moving about with
appropriate hand gesture or facial expression is preferred to sitting down or
standing still with head down and reading from a prepared speech. Use
audio-visual aids or props for enhancement if appropriate and necessary. Master
the use of presentation software such as PowerPoint well before your
presentation. Do not over-dazzle your audience with excessive use of animation,
sound clips, or gaudy colors which are inappropriate for your topic. Do not
torture your audience by putting a lengthy document in tiny print on an overhead
and reading it out to them.
Speak with conviction as if you really believe in what you are saying.
Persuade your audience effectively. The material you present orally should have
the same ingredients as that which are required for a written research paper,
i.e. a logical progression from INTRODUCTION (Thesis statement) to BODY (strong
supporting arguments, accurate and up-to-date information) to CONCLUSION
(re-state thesis, summary, and logical conclusion).
Do not read from notes for any extended length of time although it is quite
acceptable to glance at your notes infrequently. Speak loudly and clearly. Sound
confident. Do not mumble. If you made an error, correct it, and continue. No
need to make excuses or apologize profusely.
Maintain sincere eye contact with your audience. Use the 3-second method,
e.g. look straight into the eyes of a person in the audience for 3 seconds at a
time. Have direct eye contact with a number of people in the audience, and every
now and then glance at the whole audience while speaking. Use your eye contact
to make everyone in your audience feel involved.
Speak to your audience, listen to their questions, respond to their
reactions, adjust and adapt. If what you have prepared is obviously not getting
across to your audience, change your strategy mid-stream if you are well
prepared to do so. Remember that communication is the key to a successful
presentation. If you are short of time, know what can be safely left out. If you
have extra time, know what could be effectively added. Always be prepared for
the unexpected.
Pause. Allow yourself and your audience a little time to reflect and think.
Don't race through your presentation and leave your audience, as well as
yourself, feeling out of breath.
Add humor whenever appropriate and possible. Keep audience interested
throughout your entire presentation. Remember that an interesting speech makes
time fly, but a boring speech is always too long to endure even if the
presentation time is the same.
Preparation is underrated. In fact, it is one of the most important factors
in determining your communication successes. When possible, set meeting times
and speaking and presentation times well in advance, thus allowing yourself the
time you need to prepare your communications, mindful of the entire
communication process (source, encoding, channel, decoding, receiver, feedback
and context). By paying close attention to each of these stages and preparing
accordingly, you ensure your communications will be more effective and better
understood.
Of course, not all communications can be scheduled. In this case,
preparation may mean hav
Hopefully these tricks will be able to help you as they had helped me in
overcoming fear of public speaking.1) Admit nervousnessAll you have to do is
admit that you are a bit nervous speaking to your audience. When you do this,
the audience will be more forgiving if your nervousness shows up later on. More
importantly you will feel more relaxed now that they are not expecting a
world-class presentation. Imagine their surprise when you gave them the best
presentation ever despite your nervousness.The best way to do this is by joking
about it.
Here’s an example of a good one. “On the way here, only God and I knew
what I will be presenting. (looking a bit nervous) Now, only God knows.”2)
Redefine your audienceRedefine your audience generally means changing how you
see your audience. Instead of seeing them as lecturers who are evaluating you,
maybe you can convince yourself that they are all fellow students who are in
queue to present after you. They are all equally nervous so there is no reason
why you should be too.Or perceive them as long lost friends that you haven’t
seen for 10 years. This way you can maintain eye contact trying to figure out
where you have seen him before. To the audiences, they will see a very friendly
and personal presentation.
Do not try to convince yourself that they are babies
in diapers or that nobody is around as suggested by some books. It is very hard
to convince yourself that no one is around when you are actually speaking to
them.3) Invest in visual aidsImagine a presentation with beautiful PowerPoint
slides and even more impressive notes given to each of your audiencemembers.
Half of the time, their eyes will not be on you. They will read through the
notes and your fancy slides. This will help a lot as you can then speak to the
people who are not looking at you. When they look at you, you just change your
focus to other people who are not looking. Giving a speech to people who are not
looking at you is always easier.ing a good, thorough understanding of the office
goings-on, enabling you to communicate with the knowledge you need to be
effective, both through verbal and written communications.