Brandon Learning Centre: British Education - process, preparation and practicalities

You have written the perfect speech; blending humour, sincerity and hard fact, there is something for everyone. Now how can you avoid undermining all your hard work with a lacklustre presentation? My next few posts will focus on delivery and are a supplement to a course I am currently teaching at PolyU to a wonderful group of engaged and dedicated students. Step one: read through your speech outloud, record yourself at this point. Step two: listen to the recording whilst scanning your speech, notice where you stop and pause for breath. Do your pauses mean that key phrases are lost? Step three: mark your copy with to indicate phrases. You will end up with something that looks like this: We are all aware of how the weather affects our moods/ but do we also think about the effect on our animals?/ Do we consider how miserable,/ how uncomfortable/ or how confused they may feel when they first encouter snow? / By marking your phrasing, you break up the speech into manageable pieces

The day is coming to a close... to quote the hymn "night is drawing nigh/Shadows of the evening/Steal across the sky" What better time to reflect on your day and bring it to an end on a high point? Assuming that your audience has folded up its tents and crept silently away, try this exercise on your own in front of a mirror. The scenario is this: You are being interviewed by a radio presenter and have been asked to identify the highlights of your day. Use this framework: 1: Summarise the theme of the day 2: Give detail 3: Conclude on lessons you have learned/experiences you have enjoyed/things you never imagined would happen That is it. Three minutes to combine reflection and public speaking! For today, my speech would be: 1: Today started on a low, wet note and ended on a joyous high. 2: When I arrived at Brandon Learning Centre this morning, one of ths classrooms had flooded. After our brilliant air-conditioner men solved the problem, my spirits were lifted by

Push aside the porridge, move the muesli and use breakfast time to sharpen your public speaking skills! How? Every day, choose an article from the newspaper (or the news if you aren't a morning reader) and compose a swift presentation either arguing for or against it. Be disciplined; your presentation has to have a clear beginning, middle and end. It needs to be concise and you need to incoporate at least one piece of evidence to support your case. Push yourself; if you have a possible audience, get them to join in. This could be a perfect activity for the school run and both you and your children could be developing skills at the same time. The more you practice... the more fluent you will become. Five minutes every day and you will not only develop potential conversation skills but will also be on your way to becoming a skilled presenter on any topic.

If you are a musician, you play scales to warm up you fingers before playing. If you are a sportsman, you stretch before the vital match. If you are an artist, you sharpen your pencils before beginning your masterpiece. So why on earth would you begin a speech before preparing your voice? Find a quiet place and do the following. Step one: shake all the stress out of your body. Don't be shy; as my mother would say as she forced us to try on clothes in Dunne's Stores, "who is going to be looking at you?" Step two: breathe deeply, releasing your stress. Breathe in to the count of five, out to the count os six. Step three: hum to yourself to warm up your mouth and chant to open up your vocal chords. Put your heart into it! There are many more exercises you can do prepares yourself but the key is this; no one can see you and this is your chance to prepare the only instrument you will be using for your speech... your voice. And to finish; thank you to all my stu

According to the personals columns, the majority of us have a GSOH (Good sense of humour) In contrast, I have yet to hear anyone saying that they are a Good Public Speaker! In this update, I would like to try to provide a quick check list for you to identify areas which may need work and will be providing some ideas to help in the near future. The voice: You will need: a voice recorder, a newspaper Put the voice recorder in a place where it will pick up your voice but not so close to you that you do not need to project. Record yourself reading any article from the paper as though you are reading to an audience. When you play back the piece, you are listening for: 1: Words which are indistinct (is there a pattern; are they at the end of sentences? Do they include the same letter combinations? 2: Changes in volume; are they logical? 3: Pace; do you rush? 4: Tone of voice; would you want to listen to yourself? Based on your self-diagnosis, you will have a better idea of

Every speech has the potential for disaster; you lose your train of thought, get distracted or (God forbid) fall off the platform. Last week during my annual Cantonese speech opening the Helping Hand Cookie Day, I managed to commit the first two sins but not, fortunately, the third. What do you do when you are standing on a stage in front of an audience and all goes wrong? Option one is to turn and run off the stage with the result that, for the rest of your days, you will remember the moment and cringe. Option two is to make the best of it, catch your breath, aplogise to the audience and carry on. This is the option I chose. Of course I was mortified but I did manage to pick up, apologised for my rotten pronounciation and rounded off my speech with a small shred of dignity intact. Later, I spoke to someone who had been in my audience and hadn't realised that anything had gone wrong. In an ideal world, every speech would be perfect. In the world we live in, this may not b

I have just returned from Queensland where we have experienced the worst floods since 1974. Entire communities have been devastated. Out of this misery has emerged the shining example of the indominatable Australian spirit. Complete strangers risking their lives to save others, incredible stories of heroism and the quiet pride, determination and resilience of those who have lost everything. And the emergence of a crisis leader in the mould of wartime politicians; Anna Bligh, Premier of Queensland. Communicating during a crisis is never easy. Managing the balance between empathising with loss, creating a shared identity and establishing strong leadership to allow people to move forwards is a challenge. The most memorable speeches acknowledge the darkness of the times whilst identifying the qualities which will allow a people to move on (The classic example of this must be Churchill's speech made after the Dunkirk evacuation, a stirring use of rhetoric; "We shall fight them on t

Post Christmas lunch.. full to the brim with turkey and Chritmas spirit, what could be better than to amuse the family with a cautionary tale? These poems/monologues were a strange beastie, incredibly popular in the late nineteeth/early twenties century. The master is Hilaire Belloc whose Cautionary Tales are full of examples of people whose actions bring them to a (normally abrupt) end. Although the subject matter is macarbre, these poems make wonderful performance pieces. The lyrical language lends itself to reading outloud and you can use pauses to increase anticipation before revealing the climax. At Brandon Learning Centre, we have poetry reading shows twice a year and I have noticed that the audiences will lean forward as performers pause before the high point of their poems. My father, who is a born performer, used to read "Albert and the Lion" in which the combination of a small boy, a walking stick and a lion leads to a predictable result. The monologue was originall

The art of public speaking was developed by the Ancient Greeks. Speeches were not approached casually but carefully crafted paying strict attention to the rules of rhetoric. Aristotle dedicated an entire book to the topic, imaginatively entitled "Rhetoric." We are so lazy these days that the thought of trawling through classical literature to find inspiration fills most of us with dread. So much easier to buy one of those fabulous airport books with catchy titles promising instant public speaking skills in ten easy lessons, right? Wrong. Why waste your time on pale imitations when you can go direct to the source? I taught presentation skills to a class of fifteen year olds who not only grasped Aristotle's concepts immediately but also identified examples they had encountered. Bear in mind that this was a class of Cantonese speakers who were operating in English. Impressive. Aristotle on credibility: "Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when

We Irish have always been famed for having the "gift of the gab". Language is our currency and, when I was growing up, it was pretty much the only currency we had in any quantity! We all know what happened next... This week, Brian Lenihan, Irish Finance Minister (and not a man who will be sleeping well in the next few days!) described the EU bailout amount requested as being "less than 100 billion euros." This is a perfect example of how, when giving presentations, speakers can frame numbers and statistics in order to create the effect they are after. Example one: The loan is going to be in excess of 99.9 billion euros. Example two: The loan is going to be less than 100 billion euros and substantially less than 110 billion euros. The second example aims to minimise the perception that a large amount has been borrowed. This technique can be applied to any type of figure which you anticipate will be badly received. Alternatively, politicians use it to discredit oppone

You are more likely to see starlight over Hong Kong than meet to a natural public speaker.. When we try to see the stars, we are competing with light from buildings, cars and even fireworks. When you try to present, you are competing with years of fear, the belief that you are not really a presenter and even against people you perceive to be "good speakers" So what do you do? If you want to see the stars, you need to block out other light sources. If you want to be a good public speaker, you need to silence the distractions. So to tackle them in turn... 1: The fear. Read back in this blog to find ways of removing the physical effects of nerves. 2: not really a presenter? Record your speech, play it back,listen to it critically and work on the areas you aren't happy with. Play it again, not bad eh? Remember that feeling. 3: Good speakers? Learn from them. You don't leave the house every day expecting a battle do you? You can copy ideas, listen to techniques and even a

There is an interesting analaysis of President Obama's five pillars speech on the Guarding (UK) website. Michael Tomasky looks at the political content of the speech and speculates on it's possible reception. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/video/2009/apr/14/tomasky-talk-barack-obama-economy From a delivery perspective, part of the US President's distinctive style is the use of the pause. Dramatic pauses after key phrases are scattered liberally throughout the speech. Dramatic pauses don't have to be long, just enough for your audience to focus on your words. If you listen carefully, you will also note hat here is a brief pause in the middle of words, dragging them out and adding to the sense that the President is weighing each word carefully before he delivers them. The measured pace creates a feeling of gravity which (if we refer to Tomasky's analysis) matches the downbeat mood of the message.

When I was at school, one nun specialised in throwing board rubbers at girls who weren't listening. Reprehensible? Yes. Effective? Again, yes. As presenters, the chances are that we will lose part of our audience during at least one of our presentations. This is when the presenter's toolbox comes in to play. Tools at your disposal are: 1: Movement (use your space) 2: Pace 3: Pitch 4: Volume 5: Innovation 6: Persuasive techniues What is happening? Is your audience dozing off? Move around, raise your voice, add energy? Is your audience rejecting your ideas? Refer to your persuasive tools. Is your audience detached? Ask questions, get them to participate. Presentations are interactive; read your audience and react to their reactions and, without resorting to the boardrubber, you will keep their attention.

"You know, when I watch speakers like Obama, I realise that I will never be a good public speaker" sighed one of my dinner companion last night. "Nor me" agreed the lawyer opposite him. "Wait" I chipped in " President Obama has a whole team of scriptwriters working for him. They script, direct and coach him in the best way to deliver his speeches. It is like comparing a family photo to an air brushed portrait in a magazine. We can use the professional version for inspiration but reality is never as polished unless of course you have your own team hidden in the back office or weeks to devote to your presentation!" Use the great speakers for ideas and tips on delivery but please don't compare yourself negatively to them. Every speaker has individual talents and your may find that you become more confident if, rather than thinking you are walking in the shadow of other presenterss, you focus on your strengths and on developing your own unique st

In any one day, we make a thousand observations about other people. Listen to a review of your mental tapes at the end of the day and you'll be amazed..."That was great the way he let the old lady get on the bus first...terrible shoes she is wearing... Interesting idea he just had..." All of these observations lead to snap judgements about character, moral choices or the urban tribe we think someone belongs to. The question is; once we have made the judgement, can it change? Imagine if the man who let the old lady get on the bus first pushes you out of the way to get to a seat? Feeling differently about him now? It is a well worn piece of received wisdom that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Maybe so but we do get the chance to make subsequent impressions. How does this apply to public speaking? One of the main fears I have heard from students is that they somehow mess up their presentation and lose the audience. It is possible that you forget you

As children, we perceive that the world revolves around us. As teenagers, we worry that the world is against us. As adults, it is difficult to shake off these formative ideas. If you are in a train with people speaking a foreign language, do you assume that at least some of them are talking about you? Most of us do. Once we learn the language, we learn that people talk about everyday matters. In Hong Kong this is; what to eat, what has been eaten and what should be eaten! When it comes to public speaking, a common fear people mention is that they feel that the audience is staring at them, willing them to fail or waiting for them to say something foolish. Accurate? Next time you are in a meeting or listening to a speaker, pause and analyse your thoughts. I am willing to take a wild guess that only 30% of your attention is dedicated to the speaker. The rest will be on your everyday concerns or plans you want to get on with as soon as the meeting has finished. Your challenge as a speaker