Tuesday 27 April 2010

Public Speaking and the Importance of Body Language and Eye Contact

Public speaking is a necessary skill to have when you are trying to climb the success ladder or even trying to get through a project for school. A lot of people will tell you that when you are speaking in public to just picture everyone in their underwear, but that doesn't really work. When you are addressing an audience, you want to make sure that you are always away of certain key factors; your body language, your pronunciations, your eye contact with the audience, and your visual aids because it can never hurt to have people see an example of what you are talking about.

When it comes to your body language while speaking in public, there are a lot of habits that you do want to avoid doing. If you're nervous, you want to ensure that the audience you are addressing does not realize it. When you're in front of all those people, you want to make sure that you do not cross your legs or fidget with your feet. If you have a habit of crinkling things that are in your hand when you get nervous, try not to hold anything. Instead, what you may want to do is remember key phrases to remember your speech in its entirety. You must always remember to keep a solid stance as well, if you're shifting back in forth it may distract the audience from what you're trying to say. Your body language is a huge part in conveying your knowledge of the topic you are talking about.

Along with your body language, you want to always ensure that you pronounce your words correctly. A common problem with being nervous is you begin to stutter and aren't able to say your words correctly. If you're in front of the audience and you begin to st-st-st, people may begin to tone you out and no longer listen to what you have to say. Pronunciation is key in having your audience intrigued in what you have to say because if you use catching words, they're going to want to know more and stay intrigued to see what you have to say next.

While standing in front of an audience, you want to make sure that your eye contact is level with there. You don't want to stare at them, but glance around the room to let every person that is in the room know that you are talking to them. If you just stare at the floor the entire time, your audience may get the picture that you are not very confident and don't have a very good idea as to what you're talking about. If you're using index cards for your speech, you want to make sure that you just glance at them and that you aren't reading off of them. If you're just reading off of index cards, you audience may become bored. When pointing out portions of your visual aid, you want to ensure that you look into the audience while using the visual aid.

Now, if you're using a visual aid to further get your point across, you want to use as an enhancer not as the main part of the speech. When creating your visual aid, you want to make sure that it is big enough that the audience will be able to see it without much disruption in the room. Depending on the environment in which you're going to be speaking, you can either use bright and big displays or the typical official looking statistics. Whichever you use, you want to make sure that you point out what you're talking about while keeping eye contact with your audience.

If you use all these tips while giving a speech, you are most likely to get very positive results. You're more likely to get positive results because you'll show that you're confident in what you're presenting and that you have the knowledge required to present the item. Just always remember, body language, pronunciation, eye contact, and visual aids. Those are the keys to a fantastic speech.

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