Recently, a student who I had never met, approached me in the hall before school. She had long bangs covering her eyes and her hoodie sleeves were so long they were covering her hands. She kept her sleeve-covered hands in front of her mouth which made it very difficult to hear her on top of her small, timid voice. She shared with me that she had to do a presentation in front of her class for which she was completely unprepared...she said she hated speaking in front of people. She said she was shy and too nervous to present. I shared five MUSTS for presenting in front of others. These strategies not only increase confidence, but make public speaking much less intimidating.
1. Know your stuff. You must must know your material inside and out. Be an expert on the topic for which you are speaking.
2. Reduce, Reduce, Reduce. Practice by fully writing your presentation out on paper, then reduce it to note cards, then reduce is again to 1-5 word phrases, then reduce it to nothing.
3. Practice makes perfect. Say it to yourself, say it to a friend, say it to a recorder.
4. Be an earlybird. Get to your presentation area early. Set up in advance so you can run through the presentation 1-2 times before the real deal.
5. No technical difficulties. If you are presenting anything from the internet, you must download it to your computer, in case wi-fi connections are slow or not working.
No comments:
Post a Comment