Elocution apprehensions and how to conquer them
Delivering a talk to a group of unknown people can be scary. Most of us are less afraid of death and more scared of delivering a speech. So if you also suffer from this public speaking phobia, remember you are not alone. But don’t stop at that try to conquer this fear and learn the techniques that can be used to overcome these fears.
Consider the entire crowd, be it 10 or 100 or even 1,000, as a single individual. This can be achieved by making eye contact with one member of your audience and rattling couple of statements to them. Apart from giving a personal touch, this helps make you feel more confident that you are speaking to only one person. An oft-quoted myth advises those who are scared of looking at the crowd to focus on something inanimate such as the wall or furniture or table etc. Don’t do that. Looking at something else can prove to be a big distraction and take your focus out of the central idea of your speech. But when you make eye contact with your listeners your nervousness will vanish and you will deliver a winning speech.
Just keep in mind that your listeners have come to listen to you and they respect your word and want to learn from you. They are unaware of your nervousness and you don’t have to worry about that.
It is essential to put in emotions to your speech. It makes you concentrate on your talk and take away your tension. When you feel what you say, the impact is much higher and you will relate to your listeners better. Simply put, if you are not passionate about what you are talking about, how can you expect others to be interested?
Make your talk absorbing and entertaining. One of the ways it to make your listeners involved, crack a joke, tell a story, and relate funny incidents this will make you popular among your audience. Comedy is one of the best ways to make your listeners respond at a feeling level. If your audience laughs with you they won’t laugh at you. Use hilarious incidents to illustrate points of your speech. Don’t use dry/ sarcastic humor, use popular jokes, never experiment or overdo. Remember your audience expects value out of your speech and haven’t come to listen to a bunch of jokes.
Your talk should be centered on the theme of common interest to your listeners so that you can relate to the audience better and quicker. So as long as you make your talk sound like a conversation and give some good information, your amateur knowledge on the subject is good enough. Building a sound fellowship with your listeners is best done by making your talk interactive, ask questions, invite comments etc to do this.
Public speaking is a skill to be acquired and through practice and training anyone can master the craft. Unless you start you won’t be able to become an expert.
