Basic Principles of Public Speaking and Presentations

GEO 2:

Presentation Skills

Public presentations will form an important part of your life in any professional career or occupation. Not only will you use public speaking and presentation skills in your work environment, but also in your private life such as speaking at a wedding as the best man or maid of honor or giving the eulogy at a funeral. You will use your public speaking skills as a coach talking to a team or as an instructor demonstrating a skill. When you want to persuade a meeting to vote or implement new ideas, your public speaking skills will be of great value.

Basic principles of public speaking and presentations

You’ll watch a video

After watching the video, reflect on the following questions, either in groups or pairs:

· What did you like about the presentation?

· What was the presentation about?

· Why did the speaker talk about it?

· What were the main points?

· What did the speaker want us to do or know?

· What do you think about the way the speaker used his/her body, voice and eyes to communicate the story or message?

o Think about eye contact.

o Use of voice.

o Gestures (use of hands).

o Posture (the way the speaker stands)

When you prepare any presentation or speech, you have to remember three factors that make up an effective speech or presentation:

Think of a hamburger. A hamburger consists of three main parts: two buns and the inner part or content of the hamburger such as meat, lettuce, cheese etc. The same with your speech:

· The message or story

· Your body language and voice. That includes eye contact, gestures and posture.

· Your visuals such as PPT’s.

Let’s look at each:

1. The story or content of your speech

Introduction

· In the Introduction, you tell the audience WHAT you’re going to talk about.

· You also tell them WHY they should listen

· Then you give them an OVERVIEW of what they can expect.

· You can start with an attention grabber to interest your audience in what you’re going to talk about.

Here is an example of how to structure your Introduction. Your speech is about how to fix a flat tire.

Body

The body of your speech is like the ingredients of a good hamburger. You have to organize and spice it up so that your listeners can absorb and enjoy it.

How to organize the body of your speech

Conclusion

Finally, the conclusion of your speech is equally important. It drives home the message and leaves the audience with the ‘so what’ part of your presentation. Your conclusion must do three things:

• It must remind the audience what the main ideas of your speech were: summarize.

• It must drive home the main ideas of your speech: emphasize.

• It must leave them with a punch line or punch phrase to take home: focus.

To summarize

2. Your body language, eye contact and voice production

Most of your visual impact comes from your body message a.k.a. body language. Your appearance, gestures, body movement, eye contact and posture are all “body talkers”. All can help to, either getting you message across, or to be obstacles to your presentation. You are part of your speech. Your message is carried by your voice, eyes, hands and body. Use it to maximize the impact of your message.

2.1 Let’s start with eye contact.

How to do it:

• Make eye contact by glancing over the audience for a few seconds before you start your speech.

• Maintain eye contact with individuals for 3 to 5 seconds. Don’t make people feel uncomfortable. The individual will give you feedback by his or her body language, nodding of the head or blinking of the eyes.

• Don’t stare at someone. Don’t single people out.

• Make eye contact in a random pattern.

2.2 Gestures

When people talk, they often gesture with their hands. Even when they cannot be seen by anyone they still gesture for example when talking on their cellphones. Gestures are indeed the unspoken vocabulary of body talk. It does not only reflect the mind, thoughts and emotions of the speaker, but also an important part of the message communicated. Not everyone gesture. Some gesture more than others. Gestures, however, are an important element in public speaking.

We get five basic gestures:

· Focus gestures:

These are gestures that emphasize a point or emotion. It signals key concepts or words and draws the attention of the audience to important things that you want them to focus on.

· Illustration gestures:

This is in essence “hand talk”. Your hands are doing the talking in helping the audience visualize height, shape and dimension. You create a picture with your hands, helping the audience to better understand how to do something or what something looks like.

· Emotional gestures:

§ We can use these gestures to symbolize the feelings that we have. It helps us to appear more genuine. These gestures include facial expressions such as anger, joy, pain etc.

· Comparison gestures

§ These gestures help you to compare information, data and figures. It signals changes, differences and similarities you want the audience to understand.

· Sequence gestures:

§ It helps the audience to focus on a process or sequence used in your presentation. It can also signal an important number or amount.

2.3 Voice production

• Your voice is your greatest tool as a speaker.

• Many people bury their optimum speaking voices under layers of bad speech habits and weak breathing.

• When you speak, your voice reflects much about your emotional and psychological state. If you’re nervous, your voice will reveal it.

· A pleasant voice will help communicate your story to its maximum.

To help you in your speech preparation, let’s look at one aspect of voice production: inflection.

Voice inflection is:

• Changing your voice

• to give meaning to words

• and create context

Remember the following three words: stressing, stretching and pausing.

Practice the following.

Stressing:

· I have a house!

Stretching:

• I have a house!

Pause:

• I have a …….big house!

Practice the following sentences:

• I didn’t say she liked him.

• I didn’t say she liked him. (stretch)

• I didn’t say she liked him. (stress)

• I didn’t say she liked…… him. (pause)

3. Using visuals effectively

To further impact your message, you can use visuals such as slides, pictures, objects etc. It is said that one picture is worth a thousand words. Therefore, visual aids are important to many presentations. It can enhance speaker credibility and almost every aspect of a speech. Visual aids are not only limited to a PowerPoint presentation or slideshows. Keep in mind that visual aids appeal to the senses and emotion:

• Sight

• Hearing

• Taste

• Smell

• Touch

and

• Emotion

The golden rule of any visuals in presentations is to keep it as simple and easy to understand as possible.

Remember:

• Plan your content first. Then create your PPT and get visuals.

• Use a plain background and remove any unnecessary detail.

• The general rule is one idea per slide. Use one slide to express one idea.

• Eliminate cluttered pictures and information.

• Round off numbers.

• No extra words. Don’t use full sentences. Use key words.

• Make your presentation visually simple:

How to use visuals

· Remember the following steps to use visuals:

· 1. Introduce your chart, graph or picture. This will satisfy their “what” question. Example: This map shows where the museum is.

· 2. Explain your chart, graph or picture. This will satisfy their “why” question. Example: The solid line stands for people who visited the museum during the past year.

· 3. Focus or emphasize what is important and what the audience must pay attention to. This will satisfy their “so what” question. Example: Note that the number of people visiting the museum increased by 30%.

YES! / NO!
1. Convey one message per slide.
2. Use special effects sparingly.
3. KISS – Keep it short and simple!
4. The visuals should support your verbal presentation and not become the presentation itself.
5. Use large font size. / 1. DO NOT read your slides to your audience!
2. DO NOT use too many slides.
3. DO NOT put too much information on a single slide. Attendees should be able to read it all in 10 seconds!
4. DO NOT mix fonts!
5. DO NOT WRITE YOUR SENTENCES IN CAPITALS LIKE THIS! They are harder to read than sentences in lower case letters.

SPEECH TEMPLATE

MY CREATIVE TOPIC: ……………………………………………

1. Introduction

· Greeting:……………………………………………………………………………………

· What:………………………………………………………………………………………

· Why: This will ………………………………………………………………………………

· Overview: Today we’ll be looking at …………..points:

o Main point 1: Firstly……………………………………………………………………

o Main point 2: Then………………………………………………………………………

§ Main point 3: And Finally………………………………………………………………………..

§ TRANSITION: …………………………………………………………………

2. Body

· Main point 1: Firstly I want to tell you about

· Statement: …………………………………………………………………………

· Explain……………………………………………………………………………

· Example……………………………………………………………………………

· TRANSITION: We’ve looked at………………………., but how about………………………………………………………….?

· Main point 2

· Statement…………………………………………………………………………

· Explain……………………………………………………………………………

· Example……………………………………………………………………………

· TRANSITION: That was……………………………………….. Next we’ll be talking about……………………………………………..

· Main point 3

· Statement…………………………………………………………………………

· Explain……………………………………………………………………………

· Example……………………………………………………………………………

· TRANSITION: That brings us to our conclusion.

3. Conclusion

· Main point 1: We looked at………………………………………………………………………………………………………

· Focus point: Remember: …………………………………………………………………….

· Main point 2: We also looked at………………………………………………………………………………………………………

· Focus point: Remember: …………………………………………………………………………..

· Main point 3: Finally we looked at:……………………………………………………………………………..

· Focus point: Remember: ………………………………………………………………

· Punch line: I leave you with this:……………………………………………