Body And Mind In Public Speaking

Connection between the mind, body and voice is beneficial for effective public speaking. Feeling confident and strong in both voice and body will free the mind to ensure a good performance.

The voice is an extremely powerful tool in establishing a favorable outcome when making presentations or delivering speeches. The effectiveness of a good, strong and clear voice is undeniable.

TIPS FOR USING THE VOICE:

1. Make sure your audience can hear you. If your audience is struggling to listen to the words you are saying, they cannot concentrate on the meaning behind the words. Articulate and project your voice. Good pronunciation establishes authority and confidence. When using acronyms or abbreviations, don’t assume your audience knows what you mean so explain it to them.

2. Use a microphone. Practice with it, understand how to hold the mic, reposition the mic stand and make sure there is no feedback with a sound check. Ask someone if they can clearly articulate the words you are saying with no hisses or pops. Don’t handle it like it is a foreign object or you have fear of the microphone. It will come across as amateurish and your audience will focus on your technical problems rather than what you are saying. Make it a part of you and forget about it once it is set.

3. Don’t lose your audience with monotone. Reading by rote or reciting by rote is inherently boring and you will lose your audience to old, bad memories of listening to dull teachers and put them to sleep. Use pausing, variety in vocal tone and eye contact to interact with the audience to make a point. Present an idea, ask a challenging question and illustrate a thoughtful moment with a tilt of your head and pointed eye contact followed by a smile. The impact and power of your statement will come through. If you need to pause to collect your thoughts, do so. The audience will wait if you are confident and will add anticipation to your oration. Avoid fillers like ‘uh’ or ‘um’, silence is better than nervous filling of space. Practice in front of someone you trust who can point out fillers in your speaking to safely bring your attention to your style.

4. Vary the volume of power in your voice. Loud projection can be effective but as monotone is boring, being consistently loud is just another form of the same thing. Think about how effective a strong, quiet and controlled voice is. Many times, the idea behind emotional loudness can be conveyed with a quiet and powerful voice for illustrating a point. It is a theory of opposites. Saying something you really want to shout to get attention can be driven home more effectively with a quiet, controlled assuredness.

5. Make sure to gesture. A talking head standing at a podium like a stuffed corpse is not very interesting. Let your enthusiasm for your subject be translated through your body. Using your hands, eyes, body movements and the occasional grand gesture will add power to the speech.

BODY MOVEMENTS AND GESTURE TIPS:

1. Descriptive Gestures- used to illustrate the distance, location, size, shape or any other physical description of what you are talking about will enliven and keep the interest of your audience as well as yourself.

2. Emphatic Gestures- Stressing a key point, phrase or word through emphatic gestures with your hands or fingers directs your audience’s attention to PAY ATTENTION NOW. This should come naturally as your discourse is expounded. Use sparingly as anything repeated too often loses its power.

3. Express Enthusiasm- Voice pitch, gestures and facial expressions lend you to physically share your enthusiasm of your subject with your audience. Your audience isn’t interested in watching a robot, so act like an animated and excited human being.

4. Vary your Enthusiasm- Repetition is the death of your public address. High level energy and enthusiasm becomes equally as boring as robotic, too quiet speaking. Find where you want the most impact to come through in your speech and express grand enthusiasm where appropriate.

5. Use Your Eyes- In everyday interaction, eye contact is very important for understanding what and who you are talking to. Eyes are the window to the soul and if you as the speaker can connect with the audience by looking at them directly, your character and conviction will come through, making the audience trust what you are saying and that you are sincere. Lack of eye contact through nervousness will come off as aloof or disinterested. Use your eyes to talk to everyone in the audience, land on one individual’s pair of eyes, make a statement to them specifically and move on to a general audience gaze and repeat with another individual. This will also help with nervousness, speaking directly to one person is inherently less daunting than a large, impersonal group of hundreds or thousands.

Article Source: http://www.content.onlypunjab.com

Eric Hartwell oversees "The World's Best Homepage" intended to be a user-generated resource where YOUR opinion counts. Anybody can contribute and all are welcomed. Visit us to read, comment upon or share opinions on speaking and art and visit our associated site articles for free.

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated