A Goodreads user
asked
Shine Syamaladevi:
How can I improve my public speaking skills?
Shine Syamaladevi
Forget what you are.
Yes, that’s the first step towards preparing yourself to address public. You maybe weak in studies, bad at sports, worse at imagination, so what? Nobody bothers about it. They are there to listen to you, waiting for your opinion, your thought, your view about a particular thing. I agree that it is not easy to master the art of public speaking. It requires days (and months) of preparation and practice. Nobody has ever turned a successful public speaker in an eyes blink. It was always a result of meticulous planning and preparation.
I can give you a few tips, which can help you in developing into a public speaker:
(1) Read, read and read. Read a lot. Read whatever comes your way. Read everything, but absorb only the thing you feel right. Read across genres, fiction and non-fiction, journals and newspapers. Concentrate on wide-reading, not in in-depth reading, unless you are trying to specialize in particular field.
(2) Observe, everything around. It is not that you will stare at people and things much to their inconvenience. No, don’t do that. BTW, your observation skill will improve by itself through reading, without you realizing that.
(3) Learn looking into eyes of the people during conversation. Because it shows your confidence. Don’t keep on checking your grammar and other things inwardly. Nobody cares whether your grammar is correct or not. They are interested in the information/idea/knowledge you have got. And that makes my next point…preparation.
(4) Prepare as much as possible for the talk you are about to give. None can have 100% knowledge about anything, but we can, at least, try for that. Don’t mix-up the things, arrange the things you have prepared in an orderly manner.
(5) Don’t vomit everything you prepared at once. Audience also require time to think, to understand the things you say. So, pause in between, let silence speak to them, let the idea sink in. You need to understand where to raise your voice, where to lower, where to stop, where to pause. Learn voice modulation. If you don’t know anything about it, listen to our PM Modi’s (sorry, Modi-haters, but he is a powerful and successful public speaker) speeches, which are available in Youtube. You will understand how he puts his points across and it was successful. That was one of the reasons for the BJP’s massive victory during the previous parliament election.
(6) Practice the speech with modulation, as much as you can, in front of a mirror. Practice also will improve your confidence level.
(7) Believe that the audience have come to listen only you (you don’t have to think about the other speakers on the list). Just simply say to yourself that the audience is YOURS.
Get back to me, if you are unable to became a successful public speaker even after following the above-mentioned steps :) (authorshines@gmail.com)
Yes, that’s the first step towards preparing yourself to address public. You maybe weak in studies, bad at sports, worse at imagination, so what? Nobody bothers about it. They are there to listen to you, waiting for your opinion, your thought, your view about a particular thing. I agree that it is not easy to master the art of public speaking. It requires days (and months) of preparation and practice. Nobody has ever turned a successful public speaker in an eyes blink. It was always a result of meticulous planning and preparation.
I can give you a few tips, which can help you in developing into a public speaker:
(1) Read, read and read. Read a lot. Read whatever comes your way. Read everything, but absorb only the thing you feel right. Read across genres, fiction and non-fiction, journals and newspapers. Concentrate on wide-reading, not in in-depth reading, unless you are trying to specialize in particular field.
(2) Observe, everything around. It is not that you will stare at people and things much to their inconvenience. No, don’t do that. BTW, your observation skill will improve by itself through reading, without you realizing that.
(3) Learn looking into eyes of the people during conversation. Because it shows your confidence. Don’t keep on checking your grammar and other things inwardly. Nobody cares whether your grammar is correct or not. They are interested in the information/idea/knowledge you have got. And that makes my next point…preparation.
(4) Prepare as much as possible for the talk you are about to give. None can have 100% knowledge about anything, but we can, at least, try for that. Don’t mix-up the things, arrange the things you have prepared in an orderly manner.
(5) Don’t vomit everything you prepared at once. Audience also require time to think, to understand the things you say. So, pause in between, let silence speak to them, let the idea sink in. You need to understand where to raise your voice, where to lower, where to stop, where to pause. Learn voice modulation. If you don’t know anything about it, listen to our PM Modi’s (sorry, Modi-haters, but he is a powerful and successful public speaker) speeches, which are available in Youtube. You will understand how he puts his points across and it was successful. That was one of the reasons for the BJP’s massive victory during the previous parliament election.
(6) Practice the speech with modulation, as much as you can, in front of a mirror. Practice also will improve your confidence level.
(7) Believe that the audience have come to listen only you (you don’t have to think about the other speakers on the list). Just simply say to yourself that the audience is YOURS.
Get back to me, if you are unable to became a successful public speaker even after following the above-mentioned steps :) (authorshines@gmail.com)
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