Essays
Translations
Navigation map
Polyline Reduction
Complex jQuery Form
Words Play
Contact
Dmitri Lebedev (detail@ngs.ru, http://ryba4.com), 09.12.2007
This idea came to me after making a discussion at the English Club together with Vitaliy Sinitsa, on December 9th, 2007.
Many of us have challenges when speaking on public and envy those who can come out without a paper and speak for a long time without stopping. How can you learn to do the same? My answer is simple: you need to have something that you NEED to tell to people.
There is no magic, no psychological treatment. If you have challenges with speaking in public, there is a 99% chance that you are an absolutely normal person. Do you feel well in the company of friends or family, in an informal situation and speak a lot and fluently? I think you do. Where does all this go when you speak before a group?
Let’s think about situations from everyday life. How do you speak when you meet a good friend for the first time in a month? You may talk quicker than usual and exchange an incredible amount of information! Definitely you speak freely and fluently.
Why you don’t speak freely in challenging situations? Let’s say one makes a report at a seminar in the university and speaks badly, looks at the notes too much or just reads them, as many students do.
Why? I guess there are two reasons. First, with your friend, you have a lot of things to say, but when you make a half-baked report just to get credit for the course, you aren’t interested in the things you say, and you don’t remember all of them. Second, you also have many more things to tell your friend because you lower your “level”. You can tell even a vulgar joke (anecdote) to your friend, if you usually do, but you don’t tell it to a wider audience. That’s normal and rational.
Many boast to be able to speak profusely at an exam when they know almost nothing. Is it a good skill? I think, it is not necessary, not what you should work at, because in this case you need to invent something on the fly and to speak on something you don’t know, you need to lower the level of your quality very much, sometimes saying absolutely wrong things. This can give you a bad reputation. Better if you are honest, direct and excellent at telling things you believe in.
So, when you speak fluently, you
How do you learn these two things together? The following method worked for me.
Read the speech first for 3-5 times to different persons. This way you will rework the speech in your mind, you will find problems and add important things that you forgot to mention when you wrote the first draft. Also you’ll store all your ideas in your short-term memory, and better comprehend the subject of the speech. You will make the ideas YOURS.
While reading to the 3rd, maybe the 4th person you’ll find that you’ll not need to read; you’ll have already memorized everything. But memorizing here is not a goal; never try to just learn it by heart! Memorizing is only a good side-effect. Always have with you the main points of the speech.
And, voila, for your first speech
Isn’t it good to speak and feel confident in every word that you say?
Some psychologists suggest that you learn to feel free, to abstract from thinking of responsibility, to practice in a group therapy session, and other things. I’m not a psychologist, and I preach a direct approach. [1] Indeed, I read stories of teachers who were good at their subject, but felt constrained when they read lectures (being afraid of not conforming to their own image of ideal lecturer). There are cases of psychosomatic disorders in which psychological therapy may help. But I think if you learn to feel free inside, and then go out there and try to speak on subjects you don’t like, you may have the same difficulties again.
Instead, if the subject is incredibly interesting for you, you don’t pay much attention to the process of speaking about it; it is just a means of communication, you feel excitement from letting others know your idea.
My own success story
In the 8th semester, I had to make two speeches: one at a students’ conference, on my diploma project, and later another at the presentation of the thesis. Before that, my speeches were not very good; I felt nervous, and hesitated. But for the conference I prepared the speech in the way I have suggested above. The result was stunning: the speech at the conference was very good, and the presentation of the thesis was splendid: very persuasive, very rich with information that was easy to perceive and I seemed to know everything well. I got the highest mark for a speech at the defense among the stream, the group of students giving defenses. My classmate, who was there, never had seen me speak so well and said I was high on speed. Instead, the only thing I did was prepare well.
That wasn’t a miracle, and after that my life didn’t become perfect. I gave both good and bad speeches. But what made them good or bad wasn’t my state of mind nor any magical influence. It was just the thorough preparation: my knowledge, willingness to communicate information and my own comprehension of their subjects.
After you become good at prepared speeches, you may start learning to have the same good performance with less preparation and fewer notes. (This is what I learned in English Club, where often I was the spokesperson. Sometimes we forgot to write something down, and I had to prepare things on the fly.) In such a situation the only condition you need is to have something that you NEED to speak about.
If you take someone else’s text and try to retell those ideas, and probably you aren’t interested in the subject, or studied it not too deeply, you won’t have many distinct ideas to tell, and it’s no wonder that you won’t speak fluently and profusely. You will speak slowly, feel ill at ease, and won’t make much eye contact. Don’t internalize it; it means nothing about you as a spokesperson. Being shy in such a situation is OK for a normal man: your “inner brakes” stop you from speaking nonsense.
On the other hand, if you believe in something, maybe want to communicate an interesting idea that you share, want others to learn useful information, then words will come naturally and easy to you, you will look into the eyes of the listeners seeking their understanding, you will be vital, make gestures, and have good body language, etc.
I know I may look impressive at the English Club, but I also I have many things to learn. Here I have written only about feeling well at speeches and speaking fluently. Other things to study and learn about are: better communication (speaking fluently doesn’t yet guarantee that) and being fascinating so that speeches don’t tire people out and are a pleasure to listen to.
Psychologists’ recommendations may also work: by abstracting from the speech, role-play training and other methods you may obtain inner freedom. You still have to prepare your speech, just because you need to care about the quality of what you say. And this way all the psychological work will be done on the move. I believe that most people can do well just by feeling the strong will to deliver the content, by having enough content, by feeling confident in it, and by being excited to communicate the ideas.
Thanks to Ken Watts for proofreading.
[1] Even my friend, a psychologist, says: “The best group therapy is the one where actually no therapy is done”.