On-Site Public Speaking Training – Presentation Training: can be designed to the needs of your company or organization and can be delivered on-site at a time and location of your choice. If you have any questions please call or email us with any additional questions you may have. Contact us.
Public Speaking Classes
The Art of Public
Speaking
Our Public Speaking training
classes are designed for both the inexperienced presenter or as a refresher for more experienced members of your company or organization. Our
public speaking classes are offered in most major US cities and across Canada. Our
public speaking skills training classes are small which will give the Public Speaking Class Participants up to 10 Video Taped practice exercises as well as hours of instructor face to face interaction.
Our public speaking training classes (and our one day public speaking class) will eliminate any fear which is caused by lack of experience or nervousness due to inexperience in public speaking and will dramatically improve each participants speaking skills whether they are persuading, educating, or informing their audience. Our highly interactive classes focus on professional business communication including proper preparation, structure, delivery, and strategy, the correct use of visual aids, and handling questions & answers. Contact us today by phone at 713-627-7700 or via email: service@publicspeakingtraining.net
Public Speaking Training Class: Keys to Giving a Great Lecture
Lecture is sometimes the best, or even the only, way to disseminate a particular set of information. Lecture has its place in public speaking and doesn't have to be boring. However, it takes a skilled hand to deliver a successful lecture. A brief look back at your high school and college classes no doubt brings up many memories of teachers who were not good lecturers.
What are the public speaking keys to a successful lecture?
- Give an overview of what your lecture will include so the audience has a reference and expectation of what will come. If listeners don't know where you are heading, they will tune out very quickly.
- Answer the WIIFM (What's In It For Me). Tell them why it is worth their time to listen to you, what will be the benefits for them. This is especially true for adult audiences.
- Add a little mystery. Ask a question, begin an exciting story and stop in the middle, mention something that they will be learning later in the lecture. Create some anticipation. Have a hook to get them to pay attention long enough for you to get them involved.
- Don't talk longer than a couple of minutes without asking a question, checking for understanding, or doing something to bring their attention back to your topic.
- Realize that your audience will come and go in terms of attention. Periodically vary your voice, position in the room, and pace of speaking in order to jog them back into listening again. If you see some in the audience starting to slip away, this doesn't mean you are boring. It's just the way the human brain works. Changing something will bring them back again.
- Use stories and visuals to explain your points. I taught history and told my students interesting stories about famous figures and events. Students years later would come up to me and tell me they remembered a particular story. Keep your stories short, just a minute or two and use them liberally. No matter the age of your audience we all learn best through stories.
- Do things to catch the audience off-guard periodically. Do something novel. When I taught the French Revolution I stood on top of my desk and became a "rabble-rouser" trying to incite them to rebellion.
- Use humor. Humor helps bring attention back to your topic and makes the time go faster for you and your audience.
- Include processing time. Stop every 10 minutes and ask the audience to summarize your main point to a partner or write it on a note card to share. The audience will remember more from your lecture if you break it up into small segments and allow opportunities for them to write, think or talk about the material.
- Have a conclusion to your lecture. Let them know why they just spent 40 minutes listening and remind them of your main points. Make sure you include the WIIFM.
The lecture will be most successful if you speak as if you are having a conversation with your audience. Speak casually and use stories to illustrate your points. Remember that vision is the sense that our brains rely on the most. Use visuals and be animated when you speak.
Barbara Toney: link
Subject: Public Speaking Class