Public Speaking Skills

Online-Workshop

Trainer: Sonja Drewes

Exercise: Great Presenters – Video Observation I

Watch the two videos and observe the presenters well.

• What do you like?
• Is there anything you dislike?
• Do you have any recommendations for them?

Video 1 - Katherina Spranger (FWL 2013)

Like Dislike Recommendations

Video 2 - Thomas Rippel (FWL 2013)

Like Dislike Recommendations

© Sonja Drewes - European Business Coach

Public Speaking Skills 2
Focus of your presentation

The 4-Mat-System

Presentation structure

One of the most important areas of your presentation to get right is the beginning. Opening
confidently and clearly and in a way that allows you to connect with your audience will help you
to get into a rhythm and will also help your audience to settle, to understand what they are
going to hear and to prepare to listen to what you have to say.

1. “Open with a bang!” is common advice given to presenters. It is important that your
presentation gets off to a positive start. You need to grab your audience’s attention and make
them believe from the start that you have something to offer them.

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Public Speaking Skills 3
2. Keep the audience’s attention

Once you have got your audience’s attention it is important that you keep it. A simple but
effective way of doing this is to give your audience signals about what comes next. If you remind
your audience about what they have just heard and let them know what’s coming next, they are
more likely to be able to follow you. Once again, both you and your audience will gain
something from the presentation. This is much easier to do if you have given a brief outline of
your presentation at the beginning.

Audience-centred vs. speaker-centred

Most of us do not actually enjoy lectures or staring at slide after slide on yet another
PowerPoint presentation. When presenting to a relatively small group, active participation of
the audience can bring many benefits:

If they know they are going to be involved, they have to listen!

It gives you important feedback on what the members of your audience already know
about the subject and how they feel about it.
It shifts the focus away from you and on to the subject.
It allows you to establish a productive relationship with the audience.
The presentation becomes more audience-centred and less speaker-centred.

Take some time to reflect on your own presentation style and write some notes about how you
feel about the concept of audience participation.

3. End in a memorable way

You have opened with a bang to get your audience to listen to you. You have kept your audience
focused and interested and able to follow your flow of ideas. Great... but how do you finish it
off? You want your audience to walk away with the main points of your presentation firmly
placed in their minds so you need to close your presentation in a memorable way.

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Public Speaking Skills 4
“Speech Planner”

My presentation in 3 sentences:

 What is the essence of my presentation?

 What do I want my audience to remember/take home?

What do I want to reach/what reaction do I expect?

 What does the audience normally do after my presentation?

 What shouldn´t happen?
 What feelings do I want to trigger?

How do I reach my presentation goal?

 How specifically do to reach my goal?

 How specifically can I convince, persuade, inspire and motivate my audience, so that
they do, understand, believe what I want them to do, understand or believe?

What do I want my audience to understand?

 What facts and information will I present that support my goal?

 What conclusion will I present?

What presentation means do I use?

 How can I present the information effectively?

 How can I visualize that? What pictures will I use?
 What gadgets will I use?
 What metaphors/stories will I tell?
 What questions will I ask?

What questions do I expect and how do I deal with them?

 Where will people ask questions/show resistance?

 How will I deal with questions/resistance?
 How can I solve the resistance?
 What will I do/say?

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Public Speaking Skills 5
Rhetorical Devices (Words)

Tripling Technique

 This will not be easy. It will require blood, sweat and tears to make it a success.
 I’d like any feedback you have to give: good, bad or indifferent.
 You’re not convinced? Ok, watch, listen and learn.
 Give them a taster first. If they try it and like it, they’ll buy it.

 We can do it by working harder, working better and working together.

Effective Repetition

 The new laws will make it harder and harder for us to remain competitive.
 This latest trend is very, very encouraging.
 Every minute of every day we increase our chances of success.
 They’ve spent millions and millions in order to meet new government environmental
regulations.
 But, is it reasonable? Is it fair?

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Public Speaking Skills 6
Alliteration

 Coca-Cola, Costa Coffee, American Airlines

 Brown bear, winter wonderland, sunny summer day, red roses
 Busy as a bee

Creating Rapport
 And we all know what problems that can cause, don't we?
 The importance of global marketing is clear to all of us.
 We need to ask ourselves what we can do about this.
 Like me, I'm sure you are often too busy to reply to all the e-mails you receive.

Rhetorical Questions

 Who is perfect?
 Did I promise you too much?
 How much money can our software save you?

A pause after the question creates anticipation and ensures people listen to the answer.

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Public Speaking Skills 7
Tonality (Voice)

Pitch refers to the highness or lowness of your voice. We tend to speak in one major area.
Lower your pitch if it is usually high. Pitch is what we use to assign meaning. It’s not what you
say, but how you say it.

Exercise
Say the sentence “I can’t believe you did that!” aloud.
Use the following intended meanings: - shock, surprise, anger, sadness –

Volume is the loudness of your voice. Volume is created by forcing air through your vocal cord
by using your abdominal muscles. You want to speak loud enough that everyone in your
audience can hear you. Of course, your volume will change depending on the size of your
audience and the setting. “Just remember that a microphone is not a replacement for vocal
volume.” You do not want to yell at your audience so strive for a solid, pleasing volume.

Exercise:
Practice two paragraphs of your speech:

1. Speak as if you’re talking to someone sitting in your living room with you.

2. Then say it again as if you were in the living room talking to someone in the kitchen.

3. Now try it by standing at your front door and want the person in the street hear you. Notice
the extra air used to project the words.

Quality is the sound of your voice, tone. Your tongue, palate, teeth and lips create your tone.
This effects how you say your words, how you pronounce them and the overall sound of you
voice. You want to work toward a balanced, pleasing voice.

Tempo is the speed at which you speak. Most people speak between 130 and 190 words per
minute. You want to speak at a rate that the audience will be able to understand but not so slow
that they want to finish your sentences for them.

Exercise
Use a stopwatch, or a clock/watch with a second hand for this exercise. Read out loud
the paragraph below in your normal speaking voice:

“Like other space probes, such as Viking I and Mariner 10, the Voyager mission focused
on information gathering. Voyager consisted of a large satellite dish and magnetic field
that surrounds planets. Other instruments that could gather information, such as wind
speeds on the planet surfaces and atmospheric temperatures, were also included.”

If you read this paragraph in 17 to 21 seconds, then you’re talking at a normal speaking rate.

© Sonja Drewes - European Business Coach

Public Speaking Skills 8
Pausing: Chunking – Exercise

Let’s look at the introduction to this activity more closely and analyse it as a possible model
extract from a presentation.

Now that you have reduced the word count of your presentation // you need to prepare your
message in shorter, // simpler // chunks. To do this well // you need to consider where to place
stress in words and in sentences, // where to pause naturally in your speech // and where // to
pause for effect.

// = pause
bold text = stressed word

Try reading the text aloud (preferably recording yourself as you do). Do not exaggerate the
stressed words and try not to make the pauses too long

Exercise
Mark the text below to show which words are stressed and where the natural pauses
occur:

“The single most important element in any presentation is the audience. They should
determine everything you do; guide every decision you make. Too many presenters are
concerned with how to sort out their material and do not spend enough time considering
their audience. The audience should be the central focus of the presentation. As a
presenter you need to get your message across to them effectively. You must, therefore,
present your material within a structure that they will understand, using clear concise
language that they will understand.”

Resource: http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/profsLessons/Block3/3present_delivery1.html

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Public Speaking Skills 9
Gesturing

Underline your words with a gesture.

1. Our ignorance of these problems is like a vast desert.

2. Cohesion means sticking together tightly.

3. We must keep costs down, so as to be more efficient.

4. These two parts join at an angle, making a kind of corner.

5. If the air-conditioning is too cold, people will sit all huddled up, trying to keep
warm.

6. They’re always adding new parts, and the result is, the equipment gets bigger
and bigger.

7. This matter is finished. We don’t want to hear any more about it.

Maybe you find other examples:

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

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© Sonja Drewes - European Business Coach

Public Speaking Skills 10
Exercise: Great Presenters – Video Observation II

 Watch the videos again and evaluate the performance of the speakers using the
following criteria.
 Compare with your observations from the beginning. Where do you find
similarities/differences or explanations?

Criteria Video 1 (Katharina) Video 2 (Thomas)

Beginning

Rhetorical Devices
(Tripling, Effective
Repetetition, Alliteration,
Rhetorical Question)

Voice
(Pitch, Tempo, Volume,
Quality, Pausing)

Non-verbal
(posture, gesturing, facial
exppressions, eye contact)

End

Overall Impression

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Public Speaking Skills 11
Reflection

What I learned about myself today

What I learned from others

What ideas I contributed / advices I could give others

© Sonja Drewes - European Business Coach

Public Speaking Skills 12
Public Speaking Skills – Link List

4-Mat-System:
http://performingexcellence.co.uk/?p=59

Presentation Structure:
http://www.presentationmagazine.com/how-to-structure-a-presentation-7535.htm

https://www.gingerleadershipcomms.com/article/the-balanced-way-to-structure-a-speech-talk-
or-presentation

More examples for Rhetorical Techniques (Stylistic Devices) – for writing and speaking:
https://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/writing/style

Learn from the best! Get your message across in 3 minutes!

Examples for „Bangs“, „KISS“ and combination of all other tips:
http://www.falling-walls.com/lab/winners
https://falling-walls.com/discover/videos/breaking-the-wall-of-affordable-housing-and-waste-
plastic/
https://falling-walls.com/discover/videos/breaking-the-wall-of-inefficient-filters/

5 Aspects of a powerful voice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE7QJSO449o

3 Ways to instantly improve your voice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34I1O0Qzdbo

Body language of great presenters:

http://changingminds.org/techniques/body/satir_five_positions.htm

Body language, gesturing, eye contact:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQkmzr5b6NU
http://www.michaelgrinder.com/
http://www.artofcommunicating.com.au/public_speaking%20tips/body%20language.html

Articles and tips on stage fright:

http://www.speaking-tips.com/Stage-Fright/

How to make stress your friend | Kelly McGonigal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcGyVTAoXEU

PowerPoint - Presentation Tips:

http://www.bates.edu/ils/2011/how-do-i/software/powerpoint-presentation-tips

© Sonja Drewes - European Business Coach

Public Speaking Skills 13