Communication Skills

Here is the first and most important basic of public speaking “BREATHE’ When people are tense, nervous or anxious, their breathing becomes shallow, so breathe and breathe fully, also be acutely aware of any negative self-talk and deal with it beforehand. Turning the negative thoughts to positives through relaxation exercises, meditation, or self-hypnosis will help you do that.

The Preparation

Moving forward, every speech, however short, should be structured as introduction, the story, climax, and close. As such, as you prepare your speech consider the paraphrase. To paraphrase an idea is to express the same meaning in different words, this was Abraham Lincoln's favorite method. Paraphrasing has stood the test of time and its regular practice will do more to increase mental activity than any other exercise. It is unparallel as an aid to increase vocabulary and fluency in speaking. Therefore, take a favorite passage in a book, read it out loud, write it out, then write it again except paraphrase it into you own words, then read your paraphrased version out loud. Does it still make sense? Does it sound as good as the original? Better? Worse? If you paraphrase misses the mark, then repeat the same steps, however, if it is equal in quality to the original, than move on to another passage. When you feel that you have become pretty adept at paraphrasing passages, move on to phase two of the exercise.

Listen and watch not only the best speakers, but also your own and audience reaction. Make note of the words and gestures particularly at the climax. If the speech has moved you, stirred y our emotions, try to reproduce it with you own words and gestures. At first use a mirror, then solicit friends or relatives as an audience and video tape both yourself and their reactions. If possible make one of yourself and one of them so you can overlap what and how you’re performing with how they’re reacting to it. When you’re satisfied with both you’re ready to prepare your own public speaking presentation.

Repetition and Suggestion

We humans are susceptible to suggestions and particularly repeated suggestion. This is known as our suggestibility factor, which is how hypnosis works. A certain Mr. Dooley expressed the valuie of both quite well when he wrote "I believe anything at all, if ye only tell it to me often enough." Politicians make use of this……a lot!

In public speaking there are many ideas which must be repeated over and over again before they obtain the proper maximum effect

The Climax

Prepare a few sentences with appropriate gestures. To excite and entice an audience you must arrange sentences and accompanying gestures so that both at the same time will reach the climax of your speech. No matter what your subject, you have, in your introduction connected your audience to you, now you take that connection and use it to influence and stir the emotions of your audience to their highest level. That is the climax.

Closing

As final impressions remain longest in the mind, the closing should consist of a summary of the main points, an emphasis of the central idea, a milder, more subdued, call to emotions, and a call to action.

This then is your public speaking outline, exercises, suggestions and tips. Now go and WOW your audience!