Speech Giving (1 Viewer)

[B35tY]

This probably isn't the best place for this because even though this task is for crime fiction it relates to school in general.

Anyway, throughout my school life i have dreaded speeches. Terrible at them. In Yr 11 we did a speech on Change and i was told it was a brilliant speech with great content that was spoken terribly. Now i have to do one for crime fiction.

I don't want my (hopefully) good content to be let down by my poor speechmaking skills. How can i be a confident speechmaker who will speak dynamically and allow me to get great marks??

 

[kami]

I'll just go through a couple of points...:

First - If you know you aren't a natural performer/speaker, then do not cram for your speeches or presentations ever. You may think you can memorise the night before, but it won't be good. Seriously.

Second - Read your content through carefully(your notes for example), break it down into baby talk and don't just memorise it, understand it. Then read through again.

Third - Don't structure your speech too meticulously, you'll find that often things wil get in the way such as: you speaking too quickly, writing too much content and having to skip bits, people asking unexpected questions, people asking questions that you just didn't hear etc. and when those things happen its very easy to stumble if all you have is a strict guideline. Instead try to develop explanations and ideas and practice talking about them.

Fourth - Practice. Do it in as many ways as you can and as often as you can, sit your younger siblings down and explain to them about crime fiction, make a speech in front of your friends, whatever. Just make sure you get used to saying the words so that you don't stumble when you need to throw in a quote or a complicated concept.

Fifth - Be confident. And if you can't, then pretend that you are confident as it will make all the difference in the world - people will pay attention and nod along if you are confident.

Lastly - Don't drink too much water before your speech otherwise you'll get the runs

 

[glitterfairy]

moved to main EE1 forum.


Coming from a performing arts background I rarely have issues with presentations, however I still choke up a bit before singing solo in public (which is relatable to speeches).


My best and only piece of advice I'm going to give (because I'm of the opinion that too many details just make things scarier) is to practice.

It goes without saying that the more you know what you're talking about, the less you have to rely on your palm cards/the less you have to juggle talking/looking down. But the more comfortable you are with hearing the sound of your own voice against total silence, the more comfortable you will be with giving it "flair" and being able to wing things when you have to (such as when you say something wrong, or find yourself totally out of breath).

I've gone into speeches before not really knowing my content, but with a good attitude to "wing it" and to have fun with it. The more experience you have, the easier it is to be able to say to yourself "I've done this before, I have faith in myself, everything is going to be fine and everyone is going to have a good time"

And now for two final tips: The audience never knows when you've screwed up. However they will notice a grimace!

and -

A smile is the most attractive thing in the performing arts world. If they're looking at your teeth, they're not paying attention to anything else that's just happened!"

 

[uberschveinen]

Speaking skills? Don't worry, they changed this particular assignment so that the presentation is worth about two marks of the total, accoridng to my resources.

Aside from practice, the best thing you can do (I find) is to just sound like you know what you're talking about. Even if you make a mistake on your content or skip a palm card (and it does happen), as long as you sound confident people generally just go with what you're saying.

 

[B35tY]

skip a palm card

Yeah i printed off the speech and stuck it onto cardboard, but the cards kept sticking together while i practised. Thankfully didn't happen on the real thing.

Speech went ok, so thanks guys that helped. My large amounts of practice (hopefully) paid off.