154. How to prepare for a presentation?

We recommend that people who take our elocution lessons should practise their presentations in the following order:

1. Write the structure of the presentation in key messages, introduction, body, and conclusion. For example:
   - in the introduction, you can greet your audience and say what your presentation is about;
   - in the body of the presentation you will discuss examples and statistics which support the topic and purpose of your presentation;
   - in the conclusion you will call for action.

2. Read the presentation three times and then do an audio recording. Listen to your audio recording and make a note of your mistakes then practise again until you are satisfied with the results. It is very useful to perform articulation exercises with the app Get Rid of your Accent for a few days before your presentation.

3. Finally, practise it in front of the mirror and make a video recording of yourself presenting

Practicing in front of the mirror is helpful for public speaking because you will be able to see how confident you look, and you will also see your posture and gestures. All three, confidence, posture, and gestures can support your presentation/speech or distract from it.

The main characteristics of bad posture are:

1. Slouching

2. Body tilted backward or forwards

3. Lifted shoulders

4. Looking down

5. Toes pointing left and right, looking like a penguin

6. Both toes pointing inside and heels pointing outside

7. One shoulder is higher than the other

8. Hunched back

9. Humping on one leg

I recommend that you stay straight and create zigzag eye contact with your audience. Do not walk from one side of the room to another as it can be destructive. Just use zigzag eye contact with your audience. Download the app 4Ps, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause to practise posture preparation, use of pause and voice modulation. These useful skills will make all your presentations much better.

Let's take a look at the gestures that are weakening your presence and your speech delivery.

1. Lack of gestures resulting from the stiffness of the body. Sometimes a person feels so nervous that they grab their speech in their hands and hold it during their entire presentation. This creates a closed body posture and shows a lack of confidence.

2. Scratching your head, nose or any part of the body can look a bit distracting and even inappropriate.

3. Trying to adjust your clothes, and moving a ring on your finger are also gestures that indicate that the person feels somewhat nervous.

4. Touching and trying to improve your hair shows that you are not sure of your looks and feel you are not confident enough.

5. Too many gestures and repetitive gestures show you are trying too hard to compensate for a lack of confidence.

I recommend using descriptive gestures. Think about how your gestures can help your audience absorb the information easily. Using visual aids is also very powerful and brings an element of play into your presentation.
Just 15 minutes before presenting, perform body relaxation exercises so that anxiety does not interfere with the smooth delivery of your presentation.

You can find out more tips for speech mastery and public speaking on www.batcsglobal.com

153. Active listening checklist

Empathetic listening or active involves listening not only to the content but also to how it is said. Nonverbal messages that a speaker is using can give you clues. The foundation of empathetic listening is a sincere interest in a person speaking.

The checklist of what not to do during active listening:

1. Do not interrupt other’s speech

2. Do not anticipate what will be said

3. Do not finish a speaker's sentences

4. Do not judge, observe what is being said and how it is being said

I recommend the following instructions if you want to master empathetic listening:

1. Create eye contact with a speaker and look at them with empathy and a smile. People relax when you smile at them

2. Observe the way a person speaks. Namely intonation, tone of voice, speech speed, loudness, etc. You can learn more about it in the book Get Rid of your Accent Part Two, Advance Level, and the apps Fluent English Speech and 4Ps, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause

3. Listen to the feelings and emotions behind words and voice, and respond to them appropriately

4. Imagine that you are a psychotherapist who is talking to a patient and that you are paid for listening

5. Allow a pause after what was said and connect with what was said

6. Motivate yourself for active listening by knowing that a person who is listening is in a more powerful position than the one who speaks

More on Get Rid of your Accent | Elocution Lessons

152. Learn to communicate your emotions and feelings

I have noticed that many of us were not educated to communicate emotions and feelings. Instead, we were taught "how to think right." In kindergarten, school, university and then at work, even in the family, we learned how to think and speak appropriately.

The thing is we are not robots; we are humans with feelings and emotions. In Western civilization, we learned how to neglect our feelings and just say "the right thing." We learned that expressing vulnerability is a weakness and that being tough is a real strength. Is it? I am not so sure about it.

We often communicate the feeling of frustration with anger and aggression. In England, where I live, it is very fashionable to express feelings in a passive-aggressive way. In other words, acting nicely but with hidden aggression. Is there a need to be aggressive or passive-aggressive? Is there a better way? How can we do it differently?

Where does the aggression come from? In my opinion, the basis of aggression is judgment. What often happens is we see that someone breaks "a rule" that we expected he/she should observe, and we are quick to judge and then may even attack that person. We evaluate, judge and attack.

What if we stop evaluating and simply observe? Instead of judging, we start observing other people's speech and observing our own reaction to it and what feelings and emotions we have at that moment. This process takes time. If we do this exercise on a regular basis it will become automatic. It will substitute our reactive/aggressive responses to communicating our observations in a calm, measured way. When communicating, it is much better if we look at the person with compassion rather than with judgment.

Observation is neutral, whilst judgment is negative. When we feel negative, our body reacts in a certain way: we get tense, become stiff, and shorten breathing. By pausing, relaxing your body and breathing correctly you will help yourself to communicate your emotions as observations.

Many students who take our elocution lessons often tell us that they want to become more confident. Feeling confident is expressed by your body language, voice and words. The key to confidence is calmness, feeling relaxed and at the same time in control of your emotions.

You can find useful breathing exercises and how you can use your intonation and voice to express different feelings and emotions in the book Get Rid of your Accent Part Two, Advanced Level and the apps Fluent English Speech and 4Ps, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause.

 More on www.batcsglobal.com