- Good morning everyone?
My name is Professor Chamberlain.
And this morning we're going
to talk about Effective Speech Delivery Techniques.
First by looking at things that people need to do,
such as outlines, eye contact ,rate ,pitch, gestures,
communication apprehension
and management of verbal disfluencies or vocalized pauses.
So first we will talk about what people typically do,
and then we'll talk about some things you need to do
to improve your own particular set of skills.
First of all with outlines,
we do not want you speaking from a manuscript.
Beginning speakers often do.
But the result is that their eyes are glued
to the manuscript
with occasional terrified oh my god glances
at the audience.
This is not giving a speech.
This is simply, reading out loud real fast,
which we already know how to do.
And this is a class in improving
your speech delivery skills.
Now whether you work from an outline on an eight
and a half by eleven sheet of paper which you place on
the podium in front of you, or whether you transpose it
to note cards, if for instance if you wanna move around
a little bit, then you can refer to a note card even gesture
when you're done put your note card back on the podium
and so on.
So, whether you work from an outline at a podium
or whether you work from note cards, this allows
you to look at a point like I'm doing right now
and then look up and talk to people about it ,
then look down at the next point,
look at people, gesture occasionally,
also you can put important cues
on your outline which remind you to pause for a second
or to look questioning things that help you focus on
the content of the message.
Because what so often happens when we give a speech is,
we're so focused on the message, that we're not focused
on the delivery aspects of it.
The next thing is eye contact.
One of the reasons we use outlines is that eye contact
is better, when you look at a point and look up at people.
Too often when people have eye contact if they're using
a manuscript or a very wordy outline
they have very little eye contact down here,
instead of up here.
So you want to focus on that.
Now one mistake that people often make with eye contact
is that they triangulate.
In other words they focus on three different people
in different sections of the audience.
Bob over here, Betty over here and Louise over here.
And they go back and forth between those three points.
Which is good for the three people that are being
visually gazed upon.
But impersonal for the rest of the audience.
The next thing we gonna to talk about is rate okay?
Beginning speakers, like to speak at a rate
which is about the fastest
that the human voice can produce intelligible conversation.
Most research studies show, that people can speak at
a rate of around 480 words a minute.
You know the Lexus commercial where they promise
you the brand-new glittering car for $85 a month for
the first three months and then $687 a month
for the next five years.
The reason they do it, is because they're nervous.
So you need to focus on getting your rate of speech down
to around 150 to 250 words a minute.
This allows the audience to understand what you're saying.
If you talk too fast, you may be getting done quickly.
But you've left your audience trailing in your sound dust.
which doesn't work.
The next point is pitch.
Pitch is the clarity with which you speak,
and the loudness and some range in your vocalics.
Beginning speakers often do this.
Tobogganing along the high edge of the Swiss Alpine glacier
with a sheer cliff drop off of a thousand feet or so
was the most frightening sleigh ride of my life.
As our toboggan careened along at a speed of 100 miles
an hour, I happened to look back and I saw
an avalanche coming at me at 400 miles an hour,
and I was getting kind of scared.
If you talk like that, your audience will fall asleep.
So you want to have some range in your vocalics.
The next item is gesture and posture.
Typically, people like to do this.
They cling to the podium,
They check the security of their jangling keys
I was going to try to jingle my keys in my pocket
but I have a microphone sitting there so I can't do that.
They take out their ballpoint pen and they flick
the beloved Bic.
This doesn't work.
You need to, focus on the audience, don't slouch,
stand erect move around if you're using note cards,
stay at the podium if you're not, but gesture effectively
have something going on with your body besides
a rigid frozen stance or the stern father figure
or I'm back in the army now I'm at parade rest.
That stuff doesn't work either.
The next item we want to talk about
is communication apprehension.
This is stage fright also known as stage fright,
and it's caused most of us think
by what the audience is thinking about us
or how they feel about us.
So we're looking for psychological factors as the cause
of communication apprehension.
But that's mostly not the case.
Part of it is psychological, part of it is we worry about
how we sound, how we look, how the audience feels about us
But the big majority of it is physiological.
Adrenaline is pumping into your system.
And it increases your pace, it increases your respirations,
it increases your perspiration all kinds
of jingling, jangling things are going on.
Now this occurs because what we call
the caveman path paleo logical fight or flight syndrome.
This meant, that when a sudden emergency arises,
you've either got to get up that tree and get out of the way
of that Jaguar,
or you've got to spear that Jaguar and end your situation.
So this occurs in all competitive situations.
Now for athletes, when they are diving into the pool
or, running around the lap,
that excess energy is dissipated fairly quickly.
But, when you're standing at the podium,
diving into the rug, is not a viable option.
So there it is jangling and cline going away.
There are things you can do in advance and even during
your speech to diminish this sense
of communication apprehension.
One thing, is when you practice, visualize yourself
as being successful, having a triumphant moment, being loved
by the audience and you should practice a lot.
You should do a dress rehearsal at least two or three times.
And, when another way to do it and even more effective
is to tape yourself.
Do a selfie if that's all you have available
in terms of technology.
But, there is no better preparation than this
to see how you appear and sound to an audience.
Other things you can do before speaking,
breathe deeply but unobtrusively several times.
Also, focus on relaxing.
you can say to yourself mentally several times.
I am relaxed, I am relaxed, I am relaxed.
Another thing is doing isometric exercises.
So, when your hands are at your side starting at
you can clench them together and then starting at
your toes tighten each joint up through your body
until you get do the stomach, the chest ,the shoulders,
the arms, the fingers make a fist and then repeat.
That helps to, dissipate it.
You can move around that helps.
Another thing that works
is to look at the audience individually before you start.
Look at individual members, establish eye contact.
Last thing we want to talk about is management
of verbal disfluencies or vocalized pauses.
We all do these.
These are interruptions to normal speech.
And they occur because, our rate of thinking
is so much faster than our rate of speaking.
Most research studies show that we can think at a rate
of around 900 and 950 words a minute.
The most we can talk remember is 480 words.
Obviously, you don't want to talk that fast.
But what happens when these vocalized pauses the us,
the ums, the you knows when maybe you don't,
happen when we're trying to synchronize what's going
on up here, with what's coming out here.
And the problem is that too many of us,
do not try to bring those things into balance.
But you can do it.
It can be done effectively.
I developed an exercise which we'll discuss more in class.
But you'll select material that's about
a 100 words in length.
Then using a stopwatch or an egg timer,
you will time yourself as you read it until you reach
the point you have to do it several times.
You have to practice until you reach the point where
you feel comfortable of doing delivery at about
a 100 words a minute.
When you do that, then you can monitor,
what you're saying and how you say it and when you pause.
Now I'm doing that right now.
But notice what happens.
When I come to a point where I want to pause,
I don't say uh, I simply pause.
Then, when I'm ready to start up, I resume my speech.
And I can do that almost completely entirely throughout
my entire delivery.
So, verbal slips, verbal disfluencies there are other terms
for them as well in speech world
are natural because of this desynchronization between rates
of thinking and rate of speaking.
But it is something that is manageable.
A few us and ohms are normal.
We don't really worry about those.
But if your speech is saturated with them,
your audience is focused on your us and your ums
and not your message.
So again, watch what I'm doing.
This is something that I can control.
When I want to come to a point where I pause, I simply stop.
And then, when I'm ready to resume, I start talking again.
See how easy it is?