THE MOLAR EXPRESS

Posts Tagged ‘Education’

The introduction to a speech should arouse your listeners’ interest, establish your credibility, and focus and preview your message. Some useful ways to introduce a speech include involving the audience, relating your subject to personal experience, asking rhetorical questions, creating suspense, telling a story using humor, beginning with a quotation, using a presentation aid, or startling the audience. As you build credibility, you also make possible identification between yourself and the audience.

When you reach your conclusion, pause, and then present your summary and concluding remarks with special emphasis. Maintain eye contact for a moment before you move confidently back to your seat. This final impression is very important. You should keep the focus on your message, not on yourself. Even though you may feel relieved that the speech is over, don’t say “Whew!” or “I made it!” and never shake your head to show disappointment with your presentation. You probably did better than you thought, and at the very least, you don’t want to encourage negative reactions to your message.
Do these techniques really work, and is such advice helpful?
Research on communication apprehension has established the following conclusions:
(1) Such techniques do work, and
(2) they work best in combination. Keep in mind that controlling anxiety takes time.
As you become more experienced at giving speeches and at practicing the suggestions in the following Speaker’s Notes, you will find your fears abating, and your ability to convert communication apprehension into positive, constructive energy should improve.
Thus far, we have discussed controlling speech anxiety in terms of what the speaker can do, but the audience also can help speakers by creating a positive communication climate. As an audience member, you should listen attentively and look for something in the speech that interests you. Even if you are not excited about the topic, you may pick up some techniques that will be useful when it is your time to speak. When you discuss or evaluate the speeches of others, be constructive and helpful. That’s an attitude you will appreciate when others comment on your speech.

There are other things you can do to control communication anxiety, which go under the general heading of skills training. Actually, just about everything you learn in a speech class can help you harness your feelings of fear.
First, select a topic that interests and excites you, so that you will get so involved with it that there is little room in your mind for worry about yourself.
Second, choose a topic that you already know something about so that you will be more confident. Then build on that foundation of knowledge. Visit the library. Access the Internet. Interview local experts. The better prepared you are, the more confident you will be that you have something worthwhile to say.
Third, consider whether you might use a presentation aid—a chart, graph, object, or model. Referring to a presentation aid during your speech encourages gesturing, and gesturing helps release excess energy in constructive ways.
Fourth, practice, and then practice some more. The more you master your message, the more comfortable you will be, and the more successful you can expect to be.
Fifth, develop a positive attitude toward your listeners.
Don’t think of them as “the enemy.” Expect them to be helpful and attentive.

An effective conclusion should review the meaning of your speech in a summary statement, provide a sense of closure, leave the audience with final reflections on the significance of the speech, and, if appropriate, motivate listeners to act.
Techniques that are useful for conclusions include echoing the introduction, involving the audience, asking questions, closing with a quotation, telling a story, and ending with a metaphor. Your speech will seem more symmetrical and satisfying if your conclusion ties into your introduction.
Using Transitions, Effective transitions point up the relationships among ideas in your speech and tie the speech together. Internal summaries remind listeners of the points you have made in one part of your speech before you move on to another.