Article
For a number of people,
the thought of public speaking is enough to upset and unsettle their insides.
Nevertheless, public speaking is one of those skills that need to be developed
because of its inevitable use at certain points in our lives and careers.
Jumia Travel shares 5 ways
to improve on your public speaking skills.
Understand
the message of your speech
It is important to
understand the message your speech is trying to pass across. Try to relate the
message of your speech to a personal experience or something close enough to
drive the message home to you.
When you understand the
message of your speech, it makes delivering it much easier because if you
forget one or two things, you can easily fill the gaps with the right
alternatives. Remember that one of the worst things you can do in public
speaking is to cram the content of your speech without trying to understand it.
Cramming rather than understanding your speech increases stress and anxiety
over delivering the speech, impairing your ability to concentrate and deliver
your speech well.
Practice
Please don’t let the
moment you deliver your speech be the first time you have ever done so. It is
important to practice before hand and perfect the art of your speech delivery.
Every speech has a way it should be delivered, and you need to understand this
and go a step further to personalize the style of this delivery so it is more
authentic and thus more effective. This can only be done in the place of
practice.
You should take note that
practice is not advised to give you time to perfect the cramming of the words
of your speech, but to give you time to understand the message of your speech,
discern the best style of delivery for the speech and tailor this style to suit
your personality, strengths and abilities.
Consider
your audience
This should be done
alongside understanding your speech and practicing to be perfect. This very
important step should be kept in mind from the very beginning of your public
speaking preparation.
Firstly, your speech - its
content and message – should be relevant to your audience and something they
can relate to. When you are done with the speech (if it is written by you), the
next step is to consider your audience in preparing to give the speech.
Consider what style of delivery will appeal to them (alongside the style of
delivery that suits your speech type). Equally in personalizing the style of
your speech delivery, you should also consider what will agree with or be
offensive to your audience.
In all, consider your
audience at every stage because in the end your speech is about them not you.
Learn as much about them as you can and use the information to deliver a speech
that will be effective and memorable.
Remember
your gestures
Liven up your speech
delivery with gestures that communicate confidence. You really don’t have to
feel confident to use them - that’s the beauty of gestures. All you need to
know are the right gestures to make at the right periods and you are good. The
interesting thing is, most times in the course of making these gestures, you
are likely to get comfortable and actually relax as opposed to when you are
standing stiff and staring down the audience.
An important thing to
remember here is that the appropriate gestures for your voice, hands and even
legs (in terms of walking from one point to another as you give your speech)
are things that can be learnt. A visit to YouTube to see the many videos on
this can help you. You can also consider hiring a public speaking coach, if you
have the money to spare. Once these gestures, alongside how and when to use
them are learnt, it will make the public speaking exercise easier for you and
eliminate the possibility of overdoing or misusing these gestures.
Accept
and make peace with your emotions
The truth is, the nervous
feeling might never go away, no matter what you do. It helps to accept this and
do it anyway. Don’t waste time, energy and emotions hoping you stop feeling
nervous, your hands and voice stops shaking or your knees stop buckling.
Instead, learn the gestures, actions and reactions that can help you mask your
visible cues of nervousness. As for your emotions, just remember that the fact
that you feel nervous is known only to you, you don’t have to show it to the
world.
Make peace with the
nervous feeling, know that you can even joke about your nervousness in the
course of your speech (if you consider yourself someone with a good sense of
humour) and go on to deliver a great speech.
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