Posts Tagged ‘Presentation’

Dealing With Accents

In our previous article we discussed accents and the problems that they can cause for speakers. We talked about how important it is for our audiences to understand us – if they can’t understand then there isn’t much point in the presentation.

It is also important, however, to remember that an accent is part of who someone is. By asking someone to rid themselves of an accent we are asking them to rid themselves of part of who they are. If I’m going to listen to someone speak, then I want to hear their entire message – not just the words, but the entire message that is being communicated. Part of that message comes through in the way that they naturally express themselves.

I also need to keep in mind how biased I am. I mentioned that Canadians believe themselves to be the most unbiased people. In fact, they believe it so strongly that I would call it a bias…

In general, Canadians also believe that they don’t speak with an accent or have any regional nuances to their language (eh?). Of course we actually do, we’re just (once again) biased.

When I was a teenager I spent a couple of summers living in Texas. I was shocked when my peers started to make fun of the way I spoke. It started when they poked fun at my stereotypical use of the word “eh” and went on from there. At the time I would have expected it to be more appropriate for the “bland accent free Canadians” to make fun of the typical southern drawl - but such was not the case. When I stopped to think about it, the nuances that they were pointing out about my speech were actually correct.

What does this mean? Well once again, I have to realize that I am personally biased. When I’m listening to a speaker’s accent more than the message because it “sounds different” I have to remember it may only sound different compared to my preconceived notions of the language. Those preconceived notions may or may not be accurate. It’s quite a dichotomy that I have created here. I started off talking about the responsibility of the speaker to be understood and ended up talking about the responsibilities of the listener. So the question is, “Who is responsible for dealing with the accent?”

The answer of course is both the listener and the speaker. It is the listener’s responsibility to make sure that they are listening to the message, not the accent. It is the listener’s responsibility to accept differences in the way we speak. It is the listener’s responsibility to remain as unbiased as possible.

It is however the speakers responsibility to make sure that they are speaking in a manner that the audience can understand. Just as the use of vocabulary and background information is important, taking an accent into consideration is also important. The speaker needs to make sure that their accent isn’t interfering with the audience’s comprehension. So what if it is? What does the speaker do then?

In our next newsletter I will discuss with you a few ideas that can help reduce the impact of an accent without removing it. These will assist the speaker in communicating their entire message – being able to articulate both the words and the emotion effectively.

Transcript of Audio Article

Practice versus Presentation

This is a transcript of an audio program located in the membership area of EffectivelySpeaking.Com. Find out how you can maximize your efforts at conquering your fear of public speaking by joining for free, at
http://www.EffectivelySpeakingMembers.Com

Hi, this is David Mudie of EffectivelySpeakingMembers.Com.

And I would like to share with you the difference between preparation and practice.

When speaking in public, there are two terms that we often confuse and they are preparation and practice.

Often times, people don’t prepare. Speaking in public is uncomfortable - so they procrastinate, putting it off until the last minute. They do a poor job and then blame it on their inability to speak rather than their need to prepare and practice.

That however, is not what we’re talking about now. Right now we’re talking about people who take the time to prepare, yet still struggle.

How often have you heard someone speak and then later confess that they were not as prepared as the would have liked.

When asked how much they prepared, they frequently admit that they worked on the presentation for days or weeks. For days? How could they possibly be unprepared?

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And here lies the paradox. What exactly is preparation? Is it effective to prepare for a speech? Can there be too much preparation? And most importantly, can too much preparation increase our fear instead of decreasing it?

Now people will know that I am an advocate of preparation. I have always indicated that being unprepared can be one of the biggest causes of stress.

In fact, I had such an event just recently. Several weeks ago I was the master of ceremonies at a wedding reception. Now that shouldn’t have been a problem. I’ve been a master of ceremonies before.

The problem lay in the preparation. As the master of ceremonies it was my job to keep the program moving and to introduce all the speakers. The problem was, I didn’t know all the speakers.

A few days prior to the wedding I received a list of possible speakers. It went something like this…

John, if he decides to speak
Fred, if he decides to speak
Barb, don’t let her speak to long
Etc.

I needed to get prepared and do it fast. The night of the rehearsal I was meeting, bothering, even stalking each of the speakers. I was trying to get their full names, their relationships to the bride and groom, and what they wanted said when they were introduced.

They were all pretty nonchalant about the whole thing.

I think that most of them were probably procrastinating, like the rest of us. They didn’t want to offend the Bride and Groom by not speaking - but they also, really didn’t want to speak.

As a result, they had not only not thought much about the speech, but they also did not think much about what they wanted me to say when I introduced them.

I eventually did get the information I needed - and I did an adequate job. I would have done a better job if I was more prepared.
Whenever we speak we need to be prepared. That means having:
• The right information at your finger tips.
• Props that will illustrate your points (and if you choose to use them). Incidentally, PowerPoint and other presentation tools are props.
• The right venue for your presentation.

Finally, you need to have at least a frame work for your speech. That is, what is your theme? What are you trying to accomplish? How are you going to present it? What are your points? Etc.

If you need some tips on putting this together, listen to the S.C.P. program that I’ve got on the EffectivelySpeakingMembers.Com downloads page.

All of that is preparation, and preparation is good. But can there be too much preparation? Can too much preparation increase our fear?

I would argue yes. Yes when all of that preparation comes at the expense of practice.

There are two equally important elements to any successful presentation - the content of the presentation and the delivery. Back before I was involved with public speaking I believed that there was only one important element - the content. I felt that if the content was profound enough, the audience would forgive a poor delivery. As such, I would sacrifice the delivery and read my notes directly, in a flat monotone voice, to make sure that I did not miss a single point in my content.

It was only later that I realized that if I lost the audience because of my delivery, it wouldn’t matter how profound my content was.

It is only by truly practicing a speech that we can start to get a feeling for how effective the delivery will be and how we can make improvements. As we recite our material we will start to learn it.

Practice breeds familiarity. Familiarity reduces the need to mentally process the speech as we deliver it. So, by practicing, we will l be preparing to deliver the speech in a much smoother fashion. We will develop what most presenters strive for - a conversational tone.

A conversational tone is typically much more effective than a lecturing tone in maintaining an audience’s attention - and isn’t that what we desire.

In addition, we will discover how the words sound and flow together. We will start making small adjustments to improve the speech.

Finally, familiarity brings comfort. As we become comfortable with the speech, and we know that we can deliver it, we will reduce our fear. We will worry less about stumbling and losing our place because we know that if we do, we will be able to recover it.

So, preparation is key to ensuring that the content of your speech is correct. But make sure that you don’t spend so much time preparing the content that you don’t practice the delivery. By practicing you will improve the speech itself, increase your knowledge of it, and reduce your fear.

This is David Mudie of EffectivelySpeakingMembers.Com - and I will have more great articles posted in the EffectivelySpeakingMembers.Com articles section for you soon.

This article is available to be heard in the private members areas. Visit http://www.EffectivelySpeakingMembers.Com to learn about all the great information that is available to you right now. Start overcoming your fear with less effort than you thought possible.

What if I told you that by using some very simple techniques that you probably already know that can increase your audience’s comprehension and retention significantly (maybe even double it)? Now what if I told you it takes very little additional effort to implement these techniques – would you want to start using them?

If you tell your audience something once, their chances of recalling it tomorrow are somewhat less than 50%. If you tell it to them twice it increases to 70%-75%. A third time will increase the probability of recall up to 80%-95%. By simply repeating yourself you have increased the probability of your audience remembering what you said from %50 to close to %100. With very little effort you have almost doubled the effectiveness of your presentation in terms of recall. That’s a pretty high return on the effort that it takes to repeat yourself.

But how do you go about repeating yourself without boring or “burning out” your audience. The easiest answer is with the structure that you learned in high school English. Use an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. There is a popular phrase that goes… “In the introduction, tell them what you are going to tell them, in the body tell it to them, and in the conclusion tell them what you told them.”

It may feel to you like you are being overly repetitive (and redundant, and saying the same thing over and over again…) but to your audience it most likely won’t. Remember, you already know the concepts that you are sharing with them – but they don’t. This is their first time hearing them, so having them reinforced will seem helpful.

In addition, you can give your audience a further wake up by using your introduction to grab their attention. For example, while letting them know what you are covering you could make a controversial statement, tell a humorous story that relates to your topic, share some surprising statistics, or ask a rhetorical question that gets them thinking. All of these techniques can be used to grab your audience’s attention while and help you keep it while introduce your topic.

In the body – where you tell them what you’re telling them – give the audience the details that they need to analyze and (hopefully) accept your arguments.

Finally, in the conclusion tell them what you told them while giving them a call to action. You didn’t just give a presentation for the entertainment value, you wanted something to happen – let them know what it is that you want from them and remind them why your concepts support that action.

By simply structuring your presentation the way you learned in English class, with an introduction, a body, and a conclusion, you can almost double the retention rate of your audience. Since this technique is so easy to use, ask yourself, “Why wouldn’t you use it in your next presentation?”

Special note about the proceeding article:

I didn’t just give you some rules to follow about structure – I also gave you an example by how the article was written. I opened with a couple of rhetorical questions to grab your attention. I gave you the details in the body and finally concluded by summarizing the concept and giving you a call to action in the form of a rhetorical question.

Hopefully you found this technique to be powerful in writing – however, it is even more effective when used during presentations. Make sure that you use it.