Life’s Grand Mosaic

by Andrew Feinberg

The secrets to conversational and lively public speaking relate to 4 areas:

• Practice
• Delivery
• Posture
• Voice

Practising the Speech

• The aim is not to memorize the speech. You may wish to write it out in full to help you connect all your ideas, but we recommend tossing this before you are able to memorize it.
• Practice as you intend to deliver the speech to your audience.
• Practice enough to be familiar with your ideas.
• Use a short speaking outline to guide you.
• Use extemporaneous speaking – word your ideas at the moment of delivery – this allows a conversational tone and ‘thinking on your feet’ during the speech. You will be able to adapt the speech to any unexpected needs of the audience.

Delivering the Speech

• Intend to use a direct, conversational and lively delivery.
• Approach the position were you will speak with energy and purpose.
• Take a firm but comfortable stance directly facing the audience.
• Pause briefly and begin to speak.
• Look at members of your audience, talking to one long enough to complete a thought, and then move to another.
• Be friendly, conversational, animated and enthusiastic.
• Your hands should be at your side when not used in gesturing.
• Speak with your whole body and your whole mind.
• The first breath you take establishes your lung capacity for the speech - make it a deep one.  This will allow you to breath less often through the speech.

A warm-up exercise that will help is to slowly raise your arms above your head, then lower them, allowing your rib cage to remain high. Gently swing your arms back and forth, so that your rib cage feels as if it’s floating.

Posture
Our recommended posture for conversational and lively public speaking:

• Stand firmly on both feet, distributing the weight of your body-evenly.
• Do not lean on the podium unless it is for specific effect, and then do not do it often.
• Don’t tie your hands to your hips, and for that matter, don’t keep them in any one place for any great length of time.
• Your posture should express your feeling about and interest in the subject and the audience.

Vocal Variety
To increase the variety and impact of your voice, there are 4 aspects that you can improve: rate, pitch, force, and quality. To read more on these aspects see Creating Vocal Variety.

In public speaking and day to day life, a monotonous voice is dull and impotent. However, too much variety is childlike.

Find what is most comfortable for you, most consistent with your personality, and most significant for the ideas you express. Such a voice will be most meaningful and forceful to your audience.

Three exercises that will help you develop vocal variety are:

Rate – Record yourself reading aloud from a book, memo, letter, newspaper, or other source as if speaking to an audience. Listen to the recording and count the words per minute.

The average rate of speaking is 120-180 words/minute. If the rate is slower or faster than this average, comprehension may be sacrificed for some segment of the audience. Practice until you feel the difference in speaking rate and until you are comfortable.

Improved breathing – Lie flat on your back, with an object on your stomach, and observe the object as it rises and falls.

Articulation – Read aloud and record the following paragraph and then listen to the recording:

“You wished to know all about my grandfather. Well, he is nearly 93 years old; he dresses himself in an ancient black frock coat, usually minus several buttons; yet he still thinks as swiftly as ever. A long, flowing beard clings to his chin, giving those who observe him a pronounced feeling of the utmost respect. When he speaks, his voice is just a bit cracked and quivers a trifle. Twice each day he plays skillfully and with zest upon our small organ. Except in the winter when the ooze or snow or ice prevents, he slowly takes a short walk in the open air each day. We have urged him to walk more and smoke less, but he always answers, “Banana Oil!” Grandfather likes to be modern in his language.”

The aim of this is to assess and practice vocal variety and articulation, determining whether all the words are understandable. Ask a friend or co-worker to listen to the recording. Does the listener understand all the words? Does you voice have variety or is monotonous. Record the paragraph a second time. Notice that articulating the words slows down the rate of speaking. Think about where you can use pauses and which words you can emphasise. Practice until the articulation and rate work together comfortably (and sound like normal speech) to aid the comprehension of the message.

[This paragraph was devised by Dr. Charles Van Riper of Western Michigan University to contain all of the speech sounds in the English language. It was used to test astronaut candidates in the Mercury program to see how clearly their voices would transmit from a space capsule. (Interpretive Skills "Communications" Lesson Plan, SER, 1983).]

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