Undoubtedly this element will finally
show and convince others about your confidence and fluency in English.
# I meet so
many young students,professionals ,teachers and managers who come
up to me after my training workshop and tell me that even though they have lot
of ideas and good hold on English Grammar,they are still not able to speak with
confidence.
#So what is it that one needs to do to become a
great speaker?
#Let us discuss few important pointers and as usual not
talking about easy breezy tips, I would love to share some powerful and practical tips today ,that will surely help you to improve your speaking skills:
#1. MT = MT stands for “Mirror Talk” , sounds cliche but it really
works believe me I say so because I did this a lot myself.
I would like to acknowledge that I was a very reserved and a shy girl at
school and college even though I had great ideas, I never had the courage to
stand up and share those ideas but I soon realized after I stepped into the
corporate arena that if my ideas were to be heard they have to wear my voice
and it was then, that I decided I will do everything possible to improve my
speaking skills.
I
I found my best friend in mirror and I started sharing everything with my
friend before I could actually speak up in front of the others and it really
helped,because mirror just like a true friend never interrupted and also it
gave me regular feedback in terms of my body language my confidence while
I was speaking and rehearsing ,it gave me a clear picture about how and what I was speaking
and I was wise enough to note every bit of it and hence I started working on it too.
So the first tip is to do a lot of “MT” Mirror Talk, it is a lot of fun
too believe me and it helps us to feel like a celebrity and I enjoyed every bit
of it and let me share openly that “I do MT even today” before
going for my seminars, guest talks or motivational talks, I still practice in
front of Mirror and it really adds to my confidence.
Surely there is a lot of psychology that goes
behind it , like it helps you to see how confident you look , it helps you to
add more intonations and on top of it, this helps you to improve
your facial gestures and body posture too.
Mirror is certainly a true friend, it supports and it
encourages you to look good, feel good and sound good.
#2. Magical moment of movements : Well, it plays certainly
the biggest and the most powerful role in communication.
Some call it as Body
language, some name it as “Non-Verbal” language and now the new term is ruling
that is “Bio Language” however If I have to talk about my journey of connecting
and communicating with professors, Teachers, students, friends and corporate
geeks I would say I have always experienced a magical connect when I
communicate with the confident bio language along with the words as it supports
and add more power and grace to the words.
It could be as simple as a curve on
my face while I greet and meet or it could be use of my hands to express my
opinion and point during a training workshop.
So, do practice the magical technique and use these
small yet powerful bio language tips to make you sound and look likes a
celebrity and a true star.
Believe me just few quick tips that I am about to
share will help you to work on your bio language.
1. Please use your hands and facial expressions
along with the powerful words by understanding the meaning of the content
first.
2. Always maintain an eye contact but do not stare
at people and embarrass them and point to note here is
A. Always focus on the face of the other individual
but not on their lips and cheeks
B. Focus on their forehead, eyes or at the bridge
of their nose. So don’t keep your eyes glued at one position.
3. Use of hands confidently.
4.Feet Talk : We never focus on our feet, because
we are so much into face , upper body posture that we ignore totally the feet
talk.
A. We point our feet towards the
interesting zone, it could be people or that place so make sure you are not
pointing your feet away from people you are talking to.
B. Stand confidently and while giving presentation
or lectures you can move around slowly and as I am not an expert in body
language but out of my experience I would just say that context is more
important because one body language gesture could mean something else in a
different context but the main idea here is to share the importance of the feet
language too.
C. For ladies it looks very elegant when they sit
with legs crossed at ankles.
#3. Intonations : Well, language is like a river that flows ,and to speak in a
beautiful flow we must master the art of Intonations too.
I strongly agree that being a non native speaker we
need to practice this art however if you start to understand the words and have
good vocabulary it will be easy to master this art of Intonations.
Well, let us define “Intonation”.
Simply put the high pitch and the low pitch in our
voice, when we speak can be defined as Intonations and if you want a simple word
to relate it means “Speech Music” .This speech music will help us to understand
the meaning of the words better.
Let me support with an example.
When you understand what you speak and you make
sense out of it, just like your mother tongue you don’t need to practice it
separately just focus on understanding few concepts.
1. When you ask a question, your pitch will go
high.
For instance: Could you please get me a
book ?
So this means that the sentence ending should be in
high pitch.
2. If you are saying a simple statement or
declarative you should have a low pitch .
My name is Anu.(Pitch will go down)
3. If you have many things to mention in one small
sentence then you go in a flow.
For instance:
I love to study,dance,swim and travel.
So words like study, dance and swim will go in the
same flow and the pitch will fall down with the word travel.
4. Connect the words: When you practice speaking , please make sure not to
stress on every word too much ,(remember that language is like a river it needs
to flow)try to connect the ending of the word with the beginning of another
word.
For Instance : Bob is on the phone
Will sound like “Babizon da foun” If a
native speaker will speak.
#Points to remember:
· Try to emphasize the important words or when you have something important to share and
· Use a low pitch when you finish the sentence or when you see a
period/full stop.
For Instance :
Tomorrow I have a meeting at 4:00
clock. (Important information is meeting, so do stress on it )
4:00 clock (Pitch would go down as it is the last
word in the sentence before the period).
Stretch the words: It is also seen that native
speakers sometimes stretch the words where they want to draw attention.
Example : I request all of you (“Awwwlllll “instead
of all ,so this word is stretched to show the stress and importance of the word
“All”)
Contract the words(Squeeze two words) : Remember while you practice your
speaking skills, in order to sound natural, please do learn to contract the words like “Shouldn’t “ instead of “Should not”, ”Wouldn’t” instead of
“would not” , “They’ve” instead of “They have”.
So it means two words are made shorter for speaking purpose by adding apostrophe as explained above.
#4.JAM Sessions : Well,
just as much as this word sounds sweet, so are the results, it is indeed a
great exercise for the beginners to practice speaking these are “Just A Minute”
sessions ,wherein you have to think about any topic randomly and quickly start
talking about it without stopping and pondering too much, see how and what you
will talk, your brain will try to talk continuously and certainly the tongue
will support, its magical and entertaining too, you can play this JAM with your
friends or even entire family ,just pick a simple or any topic of your choice that comes to your
mind, like let me give you a few now:
1.Family
2.Challenge
3.English Language
So, hope you tried all the above
three topics and enjoyed it ,make sure you do this and later when
you get time to think , do get some nice ideas dressed in beautiful words and
vocabulary.
#5.Grammar: When we talk about fluency in English most of us dread about the grammar
part, but to be very frank we shall not worry about it so much as it is not a
big deal to master all the tricky parts of grammar, all we need to speak fluent
English is understanding of few concepts like tenses, subject and
verb agreement and I don’t think we need a separate grammar book to learn this
because when we are reading, listening and speaking we are acquainting
ourselves to these grammar concepts which will come naturally and the grammar
that we are taught at school.
Having said that it doesn’t mean that you stop focusing on the grammar
rules, as we are living in the era where technology is helping us learn so we
shall make best use of it ; even today when I have few questions , I
immediately check it on you tube and prepare my own notes (I maintain a
separate notebook for Grammar ) as we have many videos which are presented by
great English teachers in India and from teacher all over the world, so never
stop learning.
Few days back in my English Grammar book I prepared the tenses chart ,
so you can also do the same to just keep going back to the nuts and bolts to
stay correct and flawless .
And to add this tinge of confidence,please do register for my upcoming book titled "English & Business Etiquette" and just drop a line @ vinumanhotra@gmail.com
