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Want to Have a Great Presentation? Tell a Story!

2/16/2017

In the business world, so many of us are required to give presentations and engage our audiences. There is usually a lot of information to present, and we are left wondering how we can connect with our audience and leave a lasting impression. How do we make our presentations memorable? After all, there is nothing more boring than someone showing us charts and spitting out numbers and percentages.

While there are obviously important facts that are mandatory, remember that a presentation is really a way to “talk” to your audience and let them become a part of your message. What better way to do that than to tell a story?

So, how do you do create a story that makes your audience truly interested in what you have to say and want to hear more?

Your story must be relevant and fit your audience.
Telling just any story won’t make a great presentation. You need to make sure that our story is relevant to your topic and fits your audience. You want to the audience to respond with an “oh!” or “ahhh”, or be surprised in a way that really gets their attention.

Your story must have a point
You want to build the story right into our presentation framework so that it is something they can relate to and makes practical sense. The point of the story must be clear. Rather than just spitting out numbers and charts, make it realistic and fun. The story puts everything together so that all of those numbers and all of the information make sense.

Make your audience laugh
If your story is funny, that’s even better. Sometimes, you might want to relate something that actually happened to you that was funny and relevant to your project. This keeps the audience engaged and interested.

Always tell a story about a person and an experience they had.
Your story can be a success story, a failure, a humorous story, or something personal. You may even want your story to have a lesson for others to learn. If your story doesn’t have a personal message, then it won’t hit home with your audience. They should reflect on how the story affected someone and how it relates to the topic.

It’s not enough just to present information in a presentation, as it tends to make it dry and dull. Spicing it up with a story or two that are relevant to your topic, teaching a lesson and saying something funny all help to engage your audience and keep them asking for more. Your presentation is a way to deliver a message in the most interesting way possible so that they walk away actually remembering what you said, the important information and practical ways to use it.

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Use Melody, Not Speaking Rate and Loudness, to Show Emotions

2/16/2017

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When we speak, there is much more to our message than just the words we say. Our melody, sometimes referred to as stressing and intonation, plays a significant role in how others interpret what we say. This is how our pitch goes up and down to convey our message.

Another way to show emotion is in our speaking rate. We associate someone who speaks quickly as being excited and sometimes inexperienced, while someone who speaks very slowly might be viewed negatively as someone who is boring or unintelligent.

Speaking volume also tells a great deal about us. A very soft-spoken person may be viewed as insecure, while a person who speaks very loudly all the time may be viewed as someone who appears angry for no apparent reason.

The best speakers of English speak using approximately 150 words per minute. Broken down, it comes to 2.5 words per second. If we focus on maintaining that rate during all speaking situations, whether we are angry, upset, excited, happy, or sad, can we still show our emotions effectively? Of course we can!

A person who keeps their cool under pressure and who can handle difficult situations without showing negative emotions are people who are most successful and are those that most of us try to emulate.

We do not need to speak quickly or too loudly to show excitement, we can do it with our tone or melody. We’ve all heard the expression that some people wear their emotions on their sleeves, which means that their emotions are transparent or that they show them easily, while other people, not so much. Some people speak without emotion to the point where we can’t tell how they feel. While we don’t want to sound overdramatic all the time, it is equally undesirable not to show any emotions at all.

Our melody should reflect our situation and our audience. Let’s take for example a business manager who has a meeting with his team. He is upset because their project is behind schedule. Because he tends to show his emotions easily, he raises his voice and speaks very quickly when showing his anger and disappointment. When yelling, all of the words he says are emphasized. Maybe he says something like, “WE HAVE TO DO BETTER IF WE ARE GOING TO SUCCEED!” (The words in caps represent emphasized words). What does his team think of him? They think that he is a “hot head” who is unapproachable, both qualities being equally undesirable. While having authority and control is an obvious strength for a leader, trying to obtain it in this way leads to disaster.

Let’s take the same scenario now with a business manager who is talking with his team about his unhappiness about their performance on their project and approach it from another angle. He speaks in a calm voice maintaining an appropriate speed and stresses the positive words he wants his team members to remember. We will use the same sentence as before, but say it as follows: “We HAVE to do BETTER if we are going to SUCCEED.” (the words in caps represent emphasized words). Now the team’s perception of their manager is much different. They know that things are not going well, but because the manager stayed calm and spoke in a professional manner, they can now move on to solving the problem. The team will be more motivated and want to please their manager more when treated with respect.

In any professional or personal situation, we should all try to remember these important tips: avoid yelling every time we find ourselves in a difficult situation, maintain our sense of calm by speaking at a consistent, appropriate rate, and emphasize the most important words we want people to remember. Speaking too quickly, yelling, and stressing every word during an argument or difficult situation means we are out of control, and that is the last quality we want others to associate with us.

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Changing Speech Habits Can Feel Awkward for ESL Speakers

2/16/2017

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If you speak English as a second language and are participating in an accent reduction and communication skills training course to improve your American English, you may feel very awkward when you first start incorporating changes into your daily speech. This is common and very natural.

Why does this happen? You have been speaking English the same way for a long time and associate yourself with your particular speaking style and habits. It is natural for you to feel awkward and maybe even a little embarrassed when you first start pronouncing some sounds differently or making changes in your speaking rate and melody. Practicing in the privacy of your own home is easy because no one else can hear you, but when you feel comfortable with the changes during private practice sessions, it is time to start incorporating them into your everyday speech. This is where you may be hesitant to use them. You might listen to yourself speak and think, "This just doesn't sound like me!"

The bottom line is that it takes about a month before a new habit feels comfortable, and that is with daily practice. No one likes change, and you will naturally resist it when you first start letting people hear the "new you", even though you want to. Your new speaking patterns may feel and sound strange to you initially, so you might think that everyone who listens to you speak may also think it sounds strange.

The good news is that NO ONE will laugh at you or think you sound strange. The changes that you are making in your speech are going to sound much more natural to American English speakers and will help others understand your speech more easily. This is because it will be more in line with what they are used to hearing.

Changing an accent and speaking style are not always easy and, like most things, they take dedication and practice. Don't get discouraged and keep working on it. The results will be well worth it!

You may always have an accent and some language differences when speaking English; getting rid of an accent and differences completely is not the goal. The goal is to create speech that is easy for others to understand, thus eliminating any communication barrier that you may once have had. The key to success in today's society is successful communication, and that is what you will be striving for!

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Did You Know That People Really Do Hear Grammar Mistakes? I Know It, But He Don't!

2/16/2017

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Let's face it, even the best speakers make grammar mistakes from time to time. We are human and with that comes imperfections. It's just the way things are. Minor grammar errors are common and don't really have a significant impact on our spoken English. We all make minor errors such as, "a apple" instead of "an apple" and "all kind of things" instead of "all kinds of things." Having said that, there are some glaring grammar errors that you should make sure you never make. These are errors that will make many people cringe when they hear and may create a negative impression.

In this article, we will focus on what we call "subject-verb agreement." In English, the rule is that the subject of the sentence (what the sentence is about) always has to agree with the verb (the action of the sentence). In simple terms, this means that there is a specific form of a verb for every subject, the subjects being I, you, he, she, it, we, they. When the subject and the verb do not agree, this is a very noticeable grammar error and should be avoided at all costs.

The most common error is made with what we call the third person singular form of a verb in the present tense. The third person singular form refers to "he", "she" and "it." Many of the errors occur with the verb "to do" (do, does, did). The verb that goes with this form always has to have an "s" at the end, so for the verb "to do", the correct form would be "does."

Let's look at an example:
This sentence is correct: "She doesn't know them." The pronoun "she" is the subject and the helping verb "doesn't" (does not) is the correct form that goes or agrees with it. The form "does" agrees with "she" because it has an "s" at the end of it, as third person singular forms must have.

Many people, however, do not use the correct form of the verb when using the third person singular present tense..
This sentence is not correct: "She don't (do not) know them." The pronoun "she" is the subject, but this time the helping verb "do" is used, which does not have an "s" at the end of it. The form "do" is used with all subjects, including "I", "you", "we" and "they." The only one it is never used with is the third person singular form, including "he", "she" and 'it."

In summary, there are minor grammar errors that most of us notice but overlook. Because so many people make them, they are becoming more acceptable in informal everyday conversational speech. Then, there are some major grammar errors that are very noticeable and may stereotype us as to our educational or socio-economic level. Forming the third person singular present tense verb incorrectly certainly gives our listener a negative impression and may even be a deciding factor in obtaining a job in which public speaking is important.

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Want to Have a Great Presentation? Tell a Story!

Use Melody, Not Speaking Rate and Loudness, to Show Emotions

Changing Speech Habits Can Feel Awkward for ESL Speakers

Did You Know That People Really Do Hear Grammar Mistakes? I Know It, But He Don't!

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