#speech tips

On Being Well Spoken

I recently received a request about posting something regarding being well spoken.

Something you need to realise is that you’re not going to become well-spoken overnight. You need to practice on people. You need to SPEAK.

I used to stutter so badly that I could barely speak a whole sentence.

Flash forward a few years. I pitched my start up in front of a crowd, I joined Model United Nations in high school and college, I’ve been invited to speak on my entrepreneurial experience by some top universities in my country. It’s taken a lot to get here. And I’m still not where I want to be.

1. Apps to track progress and help you get better at public speaking

An app that you can use: “Speeko.”

I used to use this, it is beginner friendly and you can improve your public speaking skills as well.

2. Use topic generators

Go online and look up a topic generator. Generate a random topic, video yourself speaking on that topic. Don’t give yourself time to prepare anything - read the topic and start speaking. Set a time limit - you’ll realise that speaking for even 2 minutes can be quite difficult at times.

Not only does this make you realise that you may have limited language skills, but it will also make you realise exactly where you’re falling behind. Note down things in a journal.

- is grammar the issue?

- Lack of vocabulary?

- Too many filler sounds?

- Knowledge gap?

This is also a great idea if you’re at an intermediate level of learning a language/ polishing a language. Do this everyday and maintain a diary on your improvement.

3. Reading out loud

Select a news article or any article. Read out loud, slowly and steadily. Pronounce every syllable calmly.

A two minute read should take 5 minutes to read out loud. That’s how slow you should go. Not more than 4-5 words per breath.

Your tongue needs to get used to different syllables and sounds. Practice will help.

4. Talk in real life

Talk to anyone and everyone whenever you can.

Ask your barista how their day is going.

Ask your work or university security if they’ve had a good day and if they ate today.

Chat with your taxi driver about their life. I always start with asking them if they are from the city we’re travelling in. Even if you’re from that city, act like a tourist. Where are the best eateries? The conversation eventually goes to personal questions. How many children do they have, and what do they do? What do they like about the city?

You’ll learn the art of small talk only through practice. No book or guide can actually prepare you. You have to practice, practice and practice.

5. Diaphragm breathing

Diaphragm breathing is very important. Look up some YouTube videos for reference. You essentially breathe from your tummy (stomach goes in and out; not chest going up and down). This is a great calming exercise too.

6. Stuttering tongue/ jaw exercise videos

These are great because they really do prep your jaw and tongue well. The videos could include tongue stretches, placing your tongue on your palette correctly, etc. Search on YouTube.

7. Body posture

You really need to work on your posture too. Sit up straight. Back, STRAIGHT. Chin up, shoulders relaxed. Something as simple as posture can change your level of confidence.

8. Pranayama

A yoga exercise for breathing. You can find a guided video on YouTube for sure.

9. Vocabulary

Invest your time in expanding your vocabulary. There’s enough apps and games that can help you with that, if you aren’t fond of reading. A sign of being well spoken is having great vocabulary.

Start by looking up the synonyms of everyday words.

“I’m upset”

- how many different words can you find for upset?

“I had a crazy day today”

- one can easily use “hectic”, “chaotic” “lively” instead

10. Idioms

Idioms, phrases, sayings - look up common idioms in your language of choice. Aim to use at least 3 new idioms on 3 separate occasions in a week while you speak. You need to understand when and where you can use the idioms in your vocabulary.

11. Knowing when to switch

You can’t talk like a 50 year old heiress to a 10 year old child; you need to get down to their level.

If someone is clearly not a native speaker and is struggling to put words together, don’t use difficult words around them.

If you’re meeting with someone high profile, refrain from using slang.

The best speakers know when to switch their level of language.

Hmmm, actually I think it’s great to feel confident about a test? Why do you feel guilty for being confident? There’s a difference between being confident and being cocky/arrogant towards a test, where you think that you know everything and anything and that the test is beneath you, or that there’s no way you can get questions wrong in the test, or that you’re going to do better than anyone else. 

Maybe it’s just a wording thing. it’s perfectly fine to be confident, because it means you feel prepared for a test because you’ve done hard work. Just don’t let it get to your head and make that confidence turn into cockiness. 

This is my post that I wrote to add on to another post about speech, and I thought I would make it my own as well :)

So fun fact about me: This is going to be my fourth year in Speech. I’ve been in it since 8th grade and am just going into 11th grade this year (Somehow??? I’m like twelve). This year I’m going to be a captain, and  I also went to state this year for my Creative Expression piece (Which is wild since I’m a sophomore aha, I’m still trying to figure out how I made it this far). I’ve noticed that a lot of people don’t know what speech is or how to do it, so I figured that I would give some tips to the newbies/people who were thinking about doing it. I’m going to link some videos of the national competitors from this year, and then I will write some tips up. 

Champion in Original Oratory

Champion in Humor

Dramatic Interpretation Runner up

Duo (No idea what place they got lmao)

It isn’t letting me link any more, yikes. 

Anyway,

Here’s some tips:

Don’t sway or do distracting things. There’s actually a way you can do that easily. Plant your feet on the ground, shoulder width apart, and keep them there. If you have an issue with your hands swaying, keep them at your sides and try to keep them lined up with the seam of your pants/skirt.

Tip for enunciation: There’s two ways you can do this, and you are going to hate both of them. :

    Way 1: Get a writing utensil and stick it between your teeth, then try to do your speech

    Way 2: rip a 1/4 sheet of paper, crumple it up, then throw it in your mouth. Try to talk with in; try to do your speech with it.

    Disclaimer: You can not do this during an actual speech round

Get to know your character: This is especially important if you didn’t write it and got a script instead. Decide what this character’s favorite food would be. What time they would go to bed. What they would look like. Decide all the small things that would make them the person they were. This is going to help you when you have to act as them.

Another tip on the above, when choosing a speech, choose a speech with a character that you want to be.

Character pops are different based off of what your speech is about. If you’re in humor, you’re probably going to want to do quick, jerkier pops. It adds a bit of energy to you presenting. If you’re in something like prose, or just something that’s going to be a sadder speech, you are not going to do your pop like you would in humor. I consider sadder speeches’ pops to be more graceful. While you aren’t going slow, you aren’t jerking the way humor does. Your transition is going to be something graceful, like floating on clouds.

Speaking of character pops, please get different ways for your characters to look, especially if you are in Humor. Remember how you were supposed to learn everything about your character? This counts. Learn how they stand, what their voice is going to sound like, their facial expression.

If you are doing a draw category (Like storytelling, exempt reading,etc) Make sure you actually do the readings and work on them as much as you would for any other piece. in fact, work on them more. You’re learning 15 different things. I don’t care who you are, you can not put a winning speech together in the 30 minutes they give you if you don’t work on it at home as well.

Go in for practice more than what is necessary. I’m not sure how it works for other schools, but at my school the way speech works is that our coaches are available every day after school and you sign up for a time to work with them. I’ve heard other schools do it differently, but if yours works anything like this, don’t just go once a week because that’s all that is necessary. I was going in 3-4 times a week, along with starting to come in even before the season started.

If you’re doing an action that feels awkward, find a way to make it not feel awkward. Just... trust me on this. When it feels awkward you are going to look uncomfortable. If you are putting on a backpack and you don’t know what you are doing, it’s going to look weird. Either learn how to do the action you are trying to do or find an alternative.

Memorize your damn speech, it’ll make a world of a difference when you don’t have to hold the damn papers.

How to set up the beginning of your speech:

    small piece in of the beginning of the speech, maybe a minute or so.

   when you’re done with this part, do not rush into your intro. Give a one second pause, and then ease your body into a power stance. You look more confident this way, and shows the audience that you are speaking as you and not your character.

   Your intro can start with a quote, small story, whatever you would like. Let the audience know how this relates to your speech. At the very end, state the name of the speech and the name of your speech.  Nothing in any of this should be longer than three minutes.

  Here’s my example from last year:

      According to Medicinenet.com, Euthanasia is a term to refer to intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering. There’s 7 countries that offer legal Euthanasia as a medical procedure, one of them being the Netherlands. The story follows Caroline, who in attempt to make sense of things tells her story about her relapse with her terminal illness and in an effort to protect her family from the financial and emotional burden, ran away hoping to receive such services. Dying in Amsterdam.

    Notice how Amsterdam didn’t have a name of an author come after it? That’s because I wrote the speech myself. Saying “Dying in Amsterdam, by me” Would just be dumb

  Note about this: Nothing in Public address has to have this teaser/intro thing. This is a interpretation thing.

When you go to meets, for the first time or two go watch your own round. Write down how those people are different from you, what they do that you would like to take and put into your own speech.

If you are using a speech someone else wrote, you can not go changing or adding words. No if, ands, or buts.

If you are in public address and had to look up information, you have to cite all your sources. This is so so so important. I’ve seen kids almost get into state and then get disqualified because they didn’t cite all their sources and were accused of plagiarizing.

The mood is going to be very different in a round based on what category you’re in. In my experience humor seems to have a weird atmosphere to it, kinda pretentious. People in prose or drama give no fucks, they’re already dying inside.

Don’t start a duo with your best friend. We have had about four duos in my time of speccing, all of them best friends, and you know how many survived? NONE. If you want to do a duo, choose someone with the same work ethic as you. Better yet, let your coach decide for you, please. 

DO NOT EAT A TON OF SHIT JUNK FOOD UNTIL AFTER YOUR PRELIMINARY ROUNDS ARE OVER.

      My best advice would be to eat small things in between rounds, and then if you must pig out wait until just after rounds are over and/or after finals while waiting for judges to make final decisions. The reason I say that is that if you pig out in between your full stomach and the taste of pizza still in your mouth is going to be so distracting. If you wait until after rounds are over, you’ll be able to let the food settle in the chance that you final.

Don’t talk shit about the judges. Not only is it rude, but it can come to bite you in the ass if the wrong person hears you.

hello folks once again its that time of year! piece-finding time! reminder that for nsda rules, pieces either gotta have an ISBN number, be a proper pdf, or from a website on this handy dandy list: https://www.speechanddebate.org/approved-websites/

I need to have talk, an open up with my dad next week. And man, everytime I start working on my speech, even thinking of parts of it I cry. And not that only tears falling and stuff. That ugly crying, with huccups so strong that I barely can keep talking.

It's terrible not to control certain emotions. I hate feeling vulnerable and week.

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