Guidelines on how to be an effective speaker.

  

Date Posted: 7/30/2018 10:49:57 AM

Posted By: Faimus  Membership Level: Gold  Total Points: 1012

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In this world they are personalities that we just find intriguing to listen to even if we are the very least interested in the message they are trying to relay. These people really the best examples of effective speakers. Effective public speaking just like any other activity requires a lot of practice and dedication since it is not just a matter of standing in front of an audience and talking. Here are some guidelines on how to be an effective public speaker.

1. Have insight.
Insight basically refers to bring aware of your weaknesses and strengths. This can be referred in other terms to ad self awareness. Self awareness is important since it enables you to focus on your strengths and utilize them effectively to capture and maintain the attention of your audience throughout the speech. Knowledge and understanding of your weaknesses will be advantageous in that it will help to be conscious of rather than to avoid them.

2. Know your audience.
Sometimes you may be required to address a familiar audience like your classmates or colleagues at work while at other times you are to address an unfamiliar audience such a members of an organization. In either case, you should have some if not full understanding of your audience. You cannot do this by creating an audience demographics checklist which might contain the following: the average age of the audience, marital status, occupation, religious and political affiliations and educational background. If you are familiar to the audience, then you should consider their fears, goals, frustrations, likes and dislikes and the relationship that you have with them. This is important since it helps you tailor your speech to suit your audience.

3. Know what you aim to achieve.
When developing a speech you should have the objective of the speech in mind at

all times. This will be important in effective topic selection and development. It is also aid in narrowing down the speech to touch on all the key areas within the time allocated. Another advantage is that it gives a sense of direction in organizing the flow of the speech to avoid confusion during the actual presentation.

4. Rehearse.
Effective speakers do a dry run of their speeches prior to the actual presentation. You can do this by giving the speech in front of a mock audience and allowing them to critique your performance. This is important as it will enable you improve on the content of your speech or the manner of presentation. This also goes a long way in boosting your confidence and getting rid of stage fright.
5. Taking the presentation as a performance.

This will guide you to try and capture and keep the audience engaged in the speech. You will therefore employ both verbal and nonverbal cues such as gestures, pauses and the appropriate facial expressions all which are characteristic of great public speaking.

6. Critique your performance
This should include your personal and the opinions of others about your performance. This important as it will enable you to identify your weaknesses and strengths and thus improve your strengths and find ways of dealing and managing with your weaknesses if they can’t be gotten rid of. This will help feed into your next speech.

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