In this session you will:
1. Record your voice
2. Make a strengths list
3. Make an improvement list
4. Define who will help you.
There are many things that you can do to improve your presentation skills. I think that anecessary area to that almost always benefits the speaker is the ability tospeak and influence the audience. This mini course will help in many way and wewill take it a step at a time.
1. RECORD YOUR VOICE
It is invaluable to record yourself. It will give you a newperspective on how you speak and make a point. It will also be a reference foryou. I use my computer and a microphone. A cassette recorder or amicro-cassette recorded will be fine. If you have a video recorder and a tripodthis would also serve nicely.
I would like you to record yourself in two different ways.First, simply read from a book or magazine for one to two minutes. Then recordyourself without a prepared script. Pick a topic and speak about it for 1 to 2minutes.
These recordings will be enough for you to now evaluateyourself. An objective evaluation at this point is very important. I stronglysuggest you to take it seriously and it can be insightful and fun at the sametime.
The goal here is to gain insight on how others hear you. Youshould listen for specific things such as the way you take breaths, your pronunciation,your perceived pace of speaking. It is even good to note the number of wordsand then define your speaking pace in words per minute. These recordings are agreat reference for you and the more things you observer about them the morevalue they will have for you.
The objective is to make you aware of your speaking patternso that you will have specific things to work on and become lessself-conscious.
2. MAKE A STRENGTHS LIST
Many people do not like the way they sound. They think itdoes not sound like them. The way we hear ourselves is not the way others hearus. No matter how you think you sound, it is important to realize that you dohave some definite strengths.
After you have recorded yourself, listen to the recording afew times to evaluate certain aspects of your voice. It is important to notethat the things we measure we tend to improve. I suggest that you rate yourselfon a scale of 1 to 10 for the following qualities. Have your evaluators do thesame but realize that each evaluator's scale will be different.
o Warmth
o Command
o Professionalism
o Enthusiasm
o Showing Interest in your material
o Articulateness
o Pace
o Persuasiveness
o Pleasantness of tone
o Clarity
o Passion
o Authority
o Volume
Write down any other adjectives that come to mind.
3. MAKE AN IMPROVEMENT LIST
The next part of the process is to determine theimprovements or needs. Consider the following criteria:
o Too fast or too slow
o Too loud or too soft
o Monotone
o Tentative or uncertain
o Mumbles
o Breath too loud
o Breath not paced well
o Unpleasant tone
o Strong accent
o Tired or lacking enthusiasm
o Uses non-words, such as "ah," "uh,""um," or "you know"
o Too high-pitched
o Nasal
o Not relaxed
o Singsong
o Threatening
Again, list additional adjectives that come to mind.
Making lists of strengths and improvements will help you todefine the things you don't know you do well or areas you where you didn't knowyou needed to improve. Identifying these is extremely valuable. Once you knowyour strengths, be grateful for them. Now that you have your improvements list,you are ready to advance.
4. DEFINE WHO WILL HELP YOU
As you seek to improve, enlisting the support of someone whoknows you well and who you feel is easy to work with can be a big help. It maybe best to have two people you can count on for comments and suggestions. Anymore than two may be unnecessary.
Explain to your helpers that you would like them to listento you or your recordings on occasion.
It is important to have a prepared script and then to speakfrom this script and have your supporters evaluate you. The feedback fromothers that are objective in evaluating your speech is an important part of theprocess of improvement. After evaluating your recording on your own, have twoother people evaluate you as well using the same criteria. Then combine thefeedback from these evaluations.
Once you have recorded yourself and with your rating and thefeedback of others you will be ready to map out a plan for significantimprovement.
That's it for part 1. You are now prepared to make someprogress towards improving your voice in very specific areas. You will bepleasantly surprised at how quickly you can make progress with a little focusand effort.
In part 2 we will cover the key qualities of your voice, howto eliminate "non-words" and what to do about your specificpronunciation mistakes.