How to learn to speak beautifully? This question was asked by the ancient Greek orator Demosthenes. He had no ability to speak correctly, he couldn’t pronounce half the letters, his lungs were weak, and his shoulder trembled nervously. Demosthenes nevertheless decided to become an orator and began to put sea pebbles in his mouth and pronounce sentences. And in order to cope with nervous twitching, he fixed a sharp sword over his shoulder, which with each attack pierced the flesh, causing unbearable pain. After some time the twitching went away.
In this article we will look at the question of how to become a brilliant speaker without the help of a specialist.
How to become a good speaker: tips and their application
In order to speak correctly and beautifully in public, you need to remember simple recommendations:
- The volume of the voice must be adjusted to optimal sound. Don't speak too loudly, as this can unnerve the audience. To ensure that you can be clearly heard at medium volumes, understand one thing: don’t be afraid to open your mouth wide.
- Use intonation. To speak correctly, remember: the topic of discussion should be interesting and should not allow your listener to be distracted. The information content here is not the most important; it is necessary to correctly use intonation, highlight significant points and questions with voice and tone.
- Maintain the pace and rhythm of speech. To speak competently, you need to do exercises to develop your speech rate. There is no special equipment here; you can record your speech on a voice recorder and listen to where you speak very quickly and where you speak more slowly.
- Remember the gestures. Correct articulation of hand movements is one of the most important stages in deciding how to become a speaker. To do this, only one thing will help you - training in front of a mirror.
- The importance of facial expressions. It should be appropriate and correspond to the moment of the conversation or the topic of the speech.
- Remember your image. Appearance is an important step that should not be forgotten. No matter how long it takes you to learn to speak beautifully, if you come to a serious, business event in jeans, you will be treated accordingly.
Oratory: exercises
Many of us would like to have public speaking talent: the ability to speak beautifully and persuasively and present our ideas can greatly improve everyone's life. But what steps do you need to take towards becoming an outstanding public speaker? This is where special exercises come to the rescue.
The online program from 4BRAIN “Modern Rhetoric” will help you take a comprehensive approach to solving this problem. In this program, you will master and learn to apply traditional and modern rhetoric techniques for speeches, presentations, vlogging, stand-ups and much more.
Record your voice
Take any text of 200-300 words and try to read it with expression into the recorder. After that, listen to the recording and highlight errors and shortcomings. Attention should be paid to the following points:
- Are you short of air? How long can you speak in one breath? Do you inhale quickly and it doesn't affect your reading, or do you take long, inappropriate pauses? What other breathing problems do you notice?
- Do you place accents in your speech correctly? How you place semantic emphasis largely determines how listeners understand your speech.
- Is your speech monotonous? Speech should not be monotonous. Moreover, repeating the same intonations over and over again is also considered monotony. Even if you read a sentence very vividly, but repeat your intonation in two or three subsequent ones, it will sound boring and uninteresting.
- Do you have problems with diction and pronunciation? If so, what should you pay attention to?
This exercise in itself does not develop any of your skills, but it does help you decide on further exercises. To get rid of weak points, you need to find out where they are.
Correct breathing
Every speaker should be able to breathe correctly. And two exercises will help you with this:
Take a deep breath for 6 seconds (you can count to yourself or use a stopwatch). Hold your breath for a second, then exhale slowly for 8 seconds. To make it more difficult, you can count the seconds out loud as you exhale.
The second exercise is called “Candle”: you need to hold the “flame” in a certain position with your breath. This is achieved by uniform exhalation. Try to hold the “flame” as long as possible. Of course, it is not necessary to use a real candle, but at first you can use a candle to understand the principle of the exercise.
Articulation
Articulation is the work of the speech apparatus during pronunciation. You can take a list of exercises for developing articulation from here.
It is very useful to pronounce individual sounds. Take the alphabet and pronounce each letter clearly 5-7 times. When pronouncing consonants, avoid adding any vowel sounds to them. Pay more attention to problematic letters.
Before performances and rehearsals, always warm up your speech apparatus with articulation exercises.
Diction
To develop it, you can use tongue twisters and separately difficult to pronounce words, for example, “Eyjafjallajökull”, “patronized”, “transcendent”. Strive to pronounce them not only quickly enough, but also without difficulty and freely.
Go to the mirror
Oratory is not limited to speech. In addition, you must be able to maintain eye contact with the audience. To do this, go to the mirror and start telling the text of your speech, looking into your eyes.
Neither on the floor, nor at the ceiling, nor to the side - in the eyes. Then, when you learn to control your gaze without being distracted from your speech, you can try to move your gaze (after all, looking at one point is also bad). Designate an area where your listeners are supposed to sit. During your speech, glance around the imaginary auditorium and make sure that your gaze does not wander to the side.
But the mirror has another important advantage when performing: you can see your face. This means you can regulate his expressions. Your face should express some emotions, it should not be passive. It also shouldn't express your performance anxiety or insecurity. Perhaps in some moments you need to express some strong emotion - be sure to rehearse it in front of the mirror.
Now pay attention to other parts of the body. Hands should be in full view of the audience, slightly bent at the elbows (palms in the space from the lower border of the ribs to the collarbones). Of course, exceptions are allowed, but keeping your hands in your pockets is definitely not a good idea.
Listeners read nonverbal cues, so your posture and gestures greatly influence your performance. Place your feet shoulder-width apart, straighten your shoulders, and straighten up. Even when rehearsing at home, always watch your every move. Learn and get used to controlling your body.
Also, do not forget that if the stage and format of the performances allow you to move a little during the performance, then it is better to do so. In general, the more active you are on stage (within reason, of course), the more interesting it is to watch you. And this also needs to be practiced in front of the mirror.
If possible, record every performance you make in public. Then make critical notes like “I’m too worried here,” “this gesture looks very ugly,” “I have problems pronouncing sibilants,” etc. Based on your observations, make adjustments and perform appropriate exercises.
Competent self-observation and honest identification of mistakes, followed by work on them, can make you an outstanding speaker.
I wish you success!
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Key words:1Rhetoric
Classic
How to become a speaker and achieve beautiful speech? One of the most basic exercises has not changed since the time of Demosthenes. It is suitable for both theatergoers and future managers. First, you need to put nuts in your mouth and pronounce tongue twisters, trying to do it correctly and clearly. But you shouldn’t immediately resort to this method. This is undoubtedly an important exercise, but it’s better to start by correcting speech difficulties. Nowadays even announcers on television channels do not speak completely correctly. We advise you to find recordings of Soviet-era announcers (who actually spoke correctly) and take their speech as an example.
History of origin
The emergence of rhetoric is considered to be the 5th century BC. e. Ancient Greece was the first in modern Europe to form the foundations of science. At that time, stylistics and grammar were studied in Ancient Greece. The Greeks were the first to systematize knowledge of rhetoric and created a large number of treatises on this topic, and some of them are studied even in our time.
Cicero - one of the most famous orators of Ancient Rome
The Romans became interested in the art of rhetoric after the conquest of Greece, when the traditions of these countries began to mix, and the empire actively borrowed the knowledge of its provinces. Art began to flourish in the Senate, courts, and public meetings.
There were some differences between the styles of rhetoric, since the Romans were less educated than the Greeks. The conquerors' speech was littered with digressions, stories, and stylistic nuances. Despite this, eloquence was still a powerful tool for orators. There were cases when in ancient Rome high government positions were occupied by people who were skilled in speech, and this was their main advantage in the political struggle, as we can learn from historical references.
Error checking
To speak competently in public, you must first understand and determine where you regularly make mistakes. Each region of the country has its own speech disorders. For example, Muscovites swear, but in Perm they “eat” words. It will be better if a person who is not from your city speaks about the problems. After all, you may not hear your violations; they may be everywhere in your district.
So, how to become a speaker and learn how to pronounce a speech correctly in public? It is better to remember about mistakes and proceed to correct, correct, based on accepted literary norms.
Take a break
Former United States President Barack Obama had excellent oratory and eloquence. In his speeches he was distinguished by his ability to pause. Why did he do this? Firstly, so that the audience can follow the progress of his narrative. The audience seemed to be immersed in the speaker’s speech. It is much easier for people to absorb information when the speaker pauses in his speech. Follow this advice and learn to use pauses when communicating with your audience.
Use the recommendations given in the article and you will definitely become an excellent speaker.
"33 Egorki"
When giving a speech, you need to hold your breath, especially if you have to speak for a long time. To train your breathing, you can turn to an interesting exercise called “33 Egorki”. It is necessary to pronounce the following text: “in the yard, on the hill, there are 33 Egorki.” Then we count: one Yegorka, two... There can be as many Yegorkas as there is enough air for. Of course, it's better if you get to 33. This exercise will help you not get exhausted quickly, and after a speech that lasts half an hour, you will be in shape.
To speak beautifully, you need to know the rules of the Russian language. In this case, your best friend will be a dictionary with accents. Regularly perform exercises with pronouncing words in which you make mistakes, and bring this process to automaticity. It is also worth looking for common speech errors. Next, you should deal with the stress in phrases, for example the word “quarter” with stress on the first syllable.
What types of public speaking are there?
A little theory. Without it, there is no point in going further, because the type of speech is connected with the goal, and therefore with the tactics of “oratorical battle”.
1. Entertaining speech. Remember Pavel Volya and the animators at the festival. The purpose of such a speech is not to make people laugh (many people simply laugh “to themselves”), but to change the mood of the audience, to make them feel good.
2. A ceremonial speech on occasions, such as a wedding or the opening of a festival. Its purpose is to express an attitude.
3. Scientific speech. This includes lectures, seminars and trainings. Your goal will be to explain the topic in such a way that the audience understands how to apply the information in life.
4. Incentive speech. For example, a presentation of self-cleaning windows (if only they existed in reality) with the aim of selling them, or asking a child to do his homework. A compelling speech always requires action from the audience.
