Being an impactful public speaker, particularly in English as a foreign language, cannot be done in one go. Public speaking differs from everyday conversation, mainly because lots of practice and preparation are needed. Besides, a set of processes are required to be followed, starting from developing general skills such as speaking and listening skills, preparation, and speech delivery. For that reason, this article will help you prepare the things needed to master your public speaking skills.
1. Developing Fundamental Skills
There are some fundamental skills needed to master public speaking. Without developing these skills, public speaking would become less effective. This, however, doesn't mean that you have to master all these skills before actually practicing your public speaking. You can do all of them simultaneously so that your English learning will be effective.
Speaking Skills
The first fundamental skill is the speaking skill. It is obvious that good speaking skills are needed to deliver a good speech. In this case, however, the speaking skills needed are those used to speak in front of the public.
Speaking in front of the public requires confidence and good critical thinking. Besides, in this globalization era, we also need to do research about our audiences so that we can prevent cross-cultural misunderstandings. Most importantly, we must also develop our speaking fluency.
Confidence is needed to gain the attention of, engage with, and convince the audience. Imagine that you are attending a seminar in which the speaker seems unconfident. Your attention can easily drive away from the speaker, and the speech might also become less impactful. Thus, we need to develop our confidence by dealing with nervousness.
Good critical thinking is needed to strengthen our arguments. Critical thinking includes the ability to understand the relationship between ideas, differentiate facts and opinions, and analyze the credibility of a certain statement. Critical thinking can be developed as you practice expressing your thoughts clearly and accurately in an organized manner.
Listening Skills
Listening skills are also important in public speaking, especially critical listening. Critical listening is when we listen to evaluate a message in order to either accept or reject it. With good listening skills, we can get more information to be delivered in our speech. Besides, we can also evaluate how others do public speaking, which may be useful to be taken as an example of how we should do public speaking.
Even though listening skills don't relate directly to public speaking, it is still important because listening skills can influence your speaking skills. A good public speaker is definitely a good listener.
Thinking in English
In order to speak in public fluently, it is required to think in the language we use in the speech. In this case, we will focus on thinking in English. Thinking in English basically enables us to speak in English without translating into our mother language in our brain.
Have you ever felt confused about which vocabulary to use when doing public speaking? This kind of thing will not happen if you think in English. If we have developed this ability, our speaking fluency will certainly increase because the vocabulary will be automatically delivered without the process of translation.
2. Preparation Phase
Remember, public speaking is different from conversations which can happen spontaneously. In public speaking, effective preparation is needed. In other words, the preparation should be done thoroughly, and we must pay good attention to the things that need to be prepared for our speech. Good preparation will also reduce our stage fear and nervousness because we will be ready for any possible hurdles.
Topic and Purpose Selection
The very first things to prepare are the topic and purpose. Although for some occasions, the topic and general purpose have been predetermined according to the event themes, there are also times when we need to choose the topic and purpose by ourselves.
For choosing the topic, you can do brainstorming. Choose the one you have a good interest in. If you are still confused, you can choose topics that you have good knowledge about or those you want to know more about. This way, you will be motivated to look deeper into the topic, and you can pour your heart out in the speech.
After determining the topic, you can start determining the general purpose. You can consider what kind of event you will be giving a speech in. For example, if you are going to be a speaker at a seminar, you can say that your purposes are to inform and persuade the audience. After that, you can specify your purpose based on what you want to deliver to the audience.
Analyzing the Audience
A good speech must be audience-centered, which means that we must focus mainly on the audience from the very first step of the preparation until the end of the speech. A good public speaker can make the audience choose to pay attention. But how do we do that?
The most important thing to make people choose to pay attention to our speech is to know what they want to hear. Thus, analyzing their backgrounds is important because people tend to judge the information based on their beliefs.
You can start by analyzing their demographic aspects, such as age, gender, ethnicity, religious beliefs, and cultural background. After that, you can put the situational aspects of the audience into consideration. The situational aspects include size, physical settings, and their disposition towards the topic, speaker, and occasion.
Once you have done your analysis, you can adapt your speech based on the results. Try putting yourself in their shoes, and think about the way of delivery that can make the audience interested.
Preparing the Materials
To prepare the materials, the first thing to do is gather all things you might need for the speech. You can do some research about the topic by looking it up in the book or internet. Besides, you can also conduct some interviews or distribute questionnaires if needed. This way, you can gain a bigger picture of the topic.
After gathering all information, you can start developing your opinions, and determining your disposition towards the topic. You can take small notes so that you will remember what you are going to develop.
Then, you must find firm support for your idea. You can do this by giving examples, using statistics, or giving some testimonies. The testimonies themselves can be obtained from experts, peers, or anyone who has good knowledge and relationship with the topic.
Finally, you can start organizing your speech. Start by outlining what you want to deliver according to the general speech outline (introduction, body, conclusion). After that, you can add more details and support to each main idea.
3. Delivering the Speech
Anything could happen when we deliver our speech. Thus, it would be better if we get ready to adapt to any situation. There are some things that should be taken into account when delivering the speech: language use, speech delivery, and the use of visual aids.
Language Use
A good public speaker should know how to use language accurately, effectively, and appropriately. Public speakers should consider both the denotative and connotative meanings of the words they use. Besides, the language should also be used clearly and vividly in order to bring the speech to life. Then, we should also consider the audience, and be careful when using uninclusive language.
Speech Delivery
The first thing you should consider when delivering the speech is the method of delivery. You should ask yourself whether you want to read from a manuscript or not.
Secondly, you should also take your voice into account. You can adjust your volume, pitch, rates, pauses, and vocal variety according to the audience and situational aspects. Then, you should also practice your pronunciation and have clear articulation, so that the listener can grasp the idea easily.
Last but not least, you should also pay attention to your body language. You can start with your appearance. Wear appropriate clothes, and make sure that your appearance can boost your confidence. Then, you should also keep your movement and gestures in appropriate ways so that the audience will not feel uncomfortable. After that, you can consider how you should maintain eye contact with the audience.
Using Visual Aids
Using visual aids can help your audience to grasp the idea of your speech. Besides, it can also help you to attract the audience to pay attention to your speech.
There are different kinds of visual aids, such as graphics, pictures, charts, and many other things. What should be considered when choosing the visual aid is its compatibility with your topic. Thus, you must prepare it carefully and practice with it beforehand so that you can adapt it into your speech smoothly.
All of these things should be practiced regularly to master public speaking, not only by theories. Again, don't be afraid to practice it by experience. Don't be afraid to take opportunities to speak in front of the public when given to you because it is such a wonderful opportunity to develop your public speaking skills. Besides, you should also consider finding ways to learn English effectively, so that you can deliver your speech in English without any hurdles.
Comments