Monday, April 8, 2013

How To Survive Your First Public Speaking Course

By Bessie D. Burton


A lot of people feel a sense of fear and anxiety about having to speak in public. If you're reading this, then you probably have the same fears. It has been said that the fear of public speaking can be stronger than the fear of death. This means that the most people who are afraid of speaking in public would literally rather die than have to do a presentation. People are afraid, because they are worried about embarrassing themselves. Embarrassment is a huge social deterrent. You have visions of looking or sounding stupid, not knowing what you're talking about, or being challenged by an audience member and not having any good reply.

Public speaking doesn't come easily to everyone. Math didn't come easily before you had your first math class either, did it? You can take classes to learn just about anything. Even seasoned speakers seek courses to improve. If you want to improve your presentation skills, then you should take a public speaking course to develop the true art of public speaking.Everyone can benefit from a good course in presentation skills. Most of you don't have to speak in public often, but the chance that you will have to at some point is high. It can be very confusing and difficult to choose the right course. To insure you're taking the right one, here are a few things you should consider:

"Have realistic expectations. Don't expect to be perfect because we as teachers don't expect that. What we do expect is that you try, practice, research, and come prepared. But we realize that everyone gets nervous and makes mistakes, it's totally normal! It seems like the students think that they have to be perfect during every speech and that stresses them out more." -Professor Gina Herrmann, Bergen Community College

Gaining confidence on stage. Confidence is weapons that can make your audiences sense you have the authority to reach out to them. If you have the confidence, you have the power to be in control. If you don't have it, your audience will also feel that you are not ready to take the lead.Learning how you can organize your thoughts instantly. You will learn the basic knowledge on how to enhance the flow of logic into your brain and delivering interesting messages instantaneously that the audience can be able to listen and build curiosity in whatever things you say.Learning how to maintain your poise, coolness and judgment in times of stress are also some of the things you will learn from public speaking classes. You need to be good in these aspects because questions will usually be directed to you regarding your topics so you need to be armed, cool and have a clear mind all the time.

Learning all these from the training in public speaking can help you succeed not only in your career but also gaining your self-confidence which can result in enhancing your personality, relationship with other people and building you a clearer perspective in life. Unfortunately not all people do have the luxury of time in attending public speaking classes or training especially the working people. Therefore, the best way to gain the knowledge in the art of public speaking is hiring a coach or a speech coach for personal speech training purposes.

A speech coach can pinpoint to you what you need to enhance, develop, and eliminate in order for you to become better in speaking in public. He or she can be able to identify which aspect in the way you speak you must improve to make you an expert public speaker. Another advantage of having a speech coach is that he or she can always adapt to your preferred time.There is now online public speaking training which your speech coach can be able put you in and do one-on-one coaching. And with the use of the technology, this now becomes easy. However, you pay by the hour or by the project if you hire a speech coach. On the other hand, there are more things that you can gain in attending public speaking classes that a speech coach can't be able to provide and this is practicing with live audience which your classmates or group can help you with.

A public speaking school comes to serve not only to rid of nerves but also as a vital part of putting your other skills into better and more practice. Even when at most times a traditional class could aid many people in eliminating nervousness in some cases it can't. A case that is most serious could be one having very serious nerves particularly when trauma is there already buried deep within. One such case could be best addressed via therapy like hypnosis and it is only when this has been resolved can one effectively attend classroom teachings.

People with excessive nerves when it comes to social interactions may also find a classroom setup in a public speaking school quite tough to deal with. Perhaps these people have attempted to speak publicly before yet failed to materialize. Being one with such a case should cause you to remember that trying too much too soon is not wise because should failure become a recurring pattern it is only likely to cause further damage. You can instead try making small speeches and practice them in front of a mirror. By doing this you can better connect with your inner mind in convincing it that you can indeed make a public speech even in a gradual manner.

Follow Directions.Good professors will let you know what needs to be done and in what fashion you have to do it. Some will even go as far as letting you know exactly what you'll be graded on for each speech. I remember having several students fail because they couldn't follow the simplest directions (like handing in a works cited page or having a folder for materials). Make sure you read any handouts regarding assignments thoroughly, and ask any questions if there's something you don't understand. Also, when you get a grade back from your professor read the comments he or she provides for you, and take them into consideration for the next speech. Here's a little secret: we usually pay close attention to areas we asked you to focus on in our previous comments.

Anticipate your audience. Any information that you can gather ahead of time on your audience will help you tailor your speech to their needs.Videotape or record your presentation. It's remarkable how much you can learn from courses in public speaking and when watching your own speech later. This will help you make adjustments if you are speaking too fast, using pauses inappropriately, or making other mistakes that you might not be aware of at the time.The best courses in public speaking allow students to work at their own pace. This is why speaking courses that are downloadable can be so helpful, as they often include speaking tips and techniques available from public speaking experts.




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