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All right. And I was just thinking about thought chunking, right?
It's one of my favorite speaking tools.
Because I've said it before and I'll say it again:
It has nothing to do with speaking.
It has everything to do with being comfortable with silence and
knowing where to pause. So I thought we would take this passage, okay?
This is a passage I use in, in my teaching,
and I thought I would kind of talk you through where would the thought
chunks be? What's the best place to pause? Now,
remember when we talk about thought chunking,
there are always more than one way to interpret either a passage or
what we're going to say. However, there are wrong ways.
So I'll try to do demonstrate a little bit of both. Okay.
So let's start here. We have one sentence. This first sentence here. Okay?
Public speaking is amongst one of human beings greatest fears.
Now I'm gonna imagine that this is more of a formal speech. And for that reason,
I would pause after public speaking so that people know what
my topic is. So right there,
I've just gone ahead and I've paused after that
keyword, which is my topic. Okay? Now, if I had done this
public speaking is it's less powerful.
It's less powerful because of the, the to be verb.
It's a nothing verb. It doesn't, it's not action. It's it's not powerful.
Okay? So what we really wanna do here is we wanna pause after the subject public
speaking is amongst one of human beings greatest fears.
And then we can use that period as an indication to pause again.
And what you see I'm doing is I'm putting one thought chunk per line.
So here we go. Let's look at this next.
Now I'm just gonna drop this down for a moment,
just so we could look at this next line and say, Hmm, what am I gonna do here?
So I'm back over here.
Is it the multiple number of eyes looking at us with a expectation?
I could keep it as one long chunk,
but if you wanna be able to practice the speaking of each thought chunk,
getting the flow, getting the emphasis, getting the, the,
the movement of the phrase, we could break it down.
Is it the multiple number of eyes looking at us? Uh, let's see,
is it the multiple number of eyes looking at us with
expectation. You could do that. It's not, it's not wrong.
You're stopping on an information word, eyes.
You're keeping looking at us together because to look at is
the verb. Look at us right now. You could also, you could do that.
Is it the multiple number of eyes looking at us with expectation?
Now you can decide which one you like better,
but let's just make it a little shorter here. Okay? So
that you can then work on the construction of the phrase.
The saying of the phrase. Now let's look at the next line.
Let's pull that up. And again,
sometimes I just pull this one so I could just look at what's next. Now,
one of the things I like to do when I talk about thought chunking is I, I,
I look at the lines. Do I have short lines, long lines?
And I like that this is longer than the previous two lines.
So I might try that as one long thought chunk.
Is it the assumption that we're being judged? So,
I'm saying it one long thought chunk. I'm getting my links.
I'm getting my I'm even contracting here. Right?
I'm changing this so that I get the flow.
Is it the assumption that we're being judged?
And then I emphasize that we're judged. Yeah. Let's, let's keep it like that.
Now look at this. This is cool. Now we have a, a kind of a,
a word that's going to, uh, you know,
kind of separate between these two ideas.
We want to maybe just say that word alone, or, why not? Let's just say,
or so we could, we could say this as one thought chunk, have a nice pause.
And then if we go to the next one, whoops,
let's pull this down here.
We have might it just be a natural case of our nervous system giving us the
boost we need to get the job done? That's too much. We've gotta break that down.
So let's see. Might it just be a natural case of our nervous system...
That's a thought, that's a nice thought. Giving us the boost we need...
That's another nice thought... To get the job done. Okay.
So again,
really liking that we're varying the length of the thought chunks here and
hoping that you can see that as well.
Now let's come to the next one
short sentence. Let's keep this all together.
It may be a combination of all three.
Now here again,
we could do the same technique with this con conjunction, right? Yet.
We could just like we did with, or. Or,
we could change it to create variety. Remember I said,
there's not just one way do this. So we could do
yet. It is yet. Is it the latter question? Right? Maybe we pause there...
That we can focus on to build skills. We could pause there... in
combating the agitation
associated with speaking to a crowd. Now, again, let's just look at that.
You see, if you look at all of this,
you start to see how similar the length of the, the chunks are.
I would go ahead and try to kind of combine at least two of those.
So let's have a look. Yet is it the latter question?
Hmm. So again, even though I wanted it, change that from,
or I might go ahead and do this so that it's
easier to do this yet.
It is. It should be, is it right?
Oh, no. Sorry. It is... So, so here we have yet.
And then we could do this to make it easier, right? To get the contraction.
It's the latter question that we can focus on. Maybe we can do that.
Let's see if I like this. Yet,
It's the latter question that we can focus on to build skills in
combating the agitation associated with speaking to a crowd.
So even though these are similar, we went back and we had one word there.
So we start to see that nice, uh,
contrast between this length and this length.
So I hope you're getting where I'm going with all of this. Variation is key.
You wanna be able to make sure you can get the phrase out, right?
All right. Let's keep going. Use it as energy to drive the message.
Let's keep that.
Imagine being able to zip up the nerves like a jacket. There we go.
So that's a little longer. And when we reach the top,
we can bundle all of it in a positive way. Period.
We can secure it with an imaginary button at our throat.
We can use the punctuation mark here, which is a comma.
Hone the excitement. Let's make that a thought chunk. And speak clearly,
slowly...We can do it like this. And effectively
Fear is amongst us. And then let's keep this conjunction together,
but we have the power to control it. Let's pause after that. Good.
So now we start to see the length. Everything's a little bit different, right?
Okay. Now I'm gonna read it to you. Here we go. And then you're gonna read it.
Public speaking is amongst one of human beings, greatest fears.
Is it the multiple number of eyes looking at us with expectation?
Is it the assumption that we're being judged or might it just be
a natural case of our nervous system giving us the boost?
We need to get the job done.
It may be a combination of all three yet.
It's the latter question that we can focus on to build skills in combating the
agitation associated with speaking to a crowd.
Use it as energy to drive the message.
Imagine being able to zip up the nerves like a jacket.
And when we've reached the top, we can bundle all of it in a positive way.
We can secure it with an imaginary button at our throat.
Hone the excitement and speak clearly, slowly and effectively.
Fear is amongst us, but whoops.
Fear is amongst us, but we have the power to control it.
Okay, good. Well,
I'll put this in the description of today's video.
I hope that you liked it.
I hope that you can take the idea and take a passage and do it yourself.
You know, uh, take,
take some presentation you might need to give a meeting you need to go to.
Anything that will help you to work on the pronunciation,
the thought chunking, the rhythm of the language, the flow,
but really getting your communication skills to sound
confident and effective. All right.
That's really what we're working on when I talk about American accent
and communication skills.
So I hope that you like today's post this video.
I hope you remember to like to share and subscribe to the channel and come on
over to my website.
Check that out while you're with me and see if there's any,
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Any way that I can continue to help you on a, a regular basis, I'm here for you.
So thank you so much for watching. See you next time. Bye.