Speaking Confidently

Speaking Confidently can be achieved by using the following methods. However the most imprtant thing to remember is to fully understand what it is you are saying.

Word Pictures

We may not be aware of it but when we are speaking aloud we have images in our mind that we'd like the listener to share.

If I say Wimbledon most people - especially in England think of rain!

Now we have similar pictures and you know more or less what I am talking about. As the speaker I have to try and acheive this for every thought or picture that I have.

In order to do this I need to know which words are important. It's impossible to make the important words stand out if you haven't sat down and worked out which words ARE the important words.

Once you've decided what you want to say write it out. It only need to be in rough - you'll want to be able to scribble over it!

An easy way to pick out the important words is to pretend you can only hear part of each sentence. You have to decide which words you'd need to hear to be able to guess what the speaker was talking about!

Here are a few examples:

Try to pick out what you feel are the important words in the following sentences:

1. The trouble with your serve is that you let your racket drop too low and you don’t stretch up to hit the ball.

2. In order to go faster, try breathing after every third stroke.

I have written the words in bold which I think are important:

1. The trouble with your serve is that you let your racket drop too low and you don’t stretch up to hit the ball.

2. In order to go faster, try breathing after every third stroke.

Once you've picked out the important words you need to know how to make them work for you to make your speech sound interesting.

Speaking confidently means you need to make these important words stand out.

This is the key to speaking confidently and there are various ways of doing this:

1) The most important is often considered to be inflection. Inflection is when we change the pitch of our voice during a word. This inflection can be a movement up or a movement down.

Try it with the word 'NO'. Start your voice on a low note and then raise your voice (not in volume but in pitch) now try it the other way round - start high and lower oyur voice at the end of a word.

2) Pace

The speed at which we speak is probably the one thing that most people who have to speak in public do wrong!

Speaking confidently probably means you will have to slow your speaking down as the majority of people speak much too quickly.

An easy way to slow down is to say 'comma' or fullstop' to yourself everytime you come across one in your speech.

Try reading the following piece from The Old Woman and Her Pig out loud and if possible time yourself.

As she was coming home, she came to a stile; but the piggy wouldn't go over the stile.

She went a little further, and she met a dog. So she said to him: 'Dog! dog! bite pig, piggy won't get over the stile; and I shan't get home tonight.' But the dog wouldn't.

She went a little further, and she met a stick. So she said: 'Stick! stick! beat dog! dog won't bite pig; piggy won't get over the stile; and I shan't get home tonight.' But the stick wouldn't.

She went a little further, and she met a fire. So she said: 'Fire! fire! burn stick; stick won't beat dog; dog won't bite pig; piggy won't get over the stile; and I shan't get home tonight.' But the fire wouldn't.

3) Power

If you speak very quietly you'll give the impression that you're frightened of your own voice and your listeners will have to strain to hear you. This may mean that they concentrate so much on hearing you that they miss the content of your speech. Speaking confidently means people have to be able to hear you. It won't matter how brilliant what you have to say is or how long you've agonised over what to say - if you can't be heard no one will ever know!

The sound needs to be able to get out of your mouth and the only way is to open your mouth.

If a word you are saying has the 'i' sound (pronounced 'eye') as in high, light, white, my, etc. then your mouth needs to be opened so that you can get two fingers vertically in your mouth!

For this to become natural you'll need to practice the sound over and over again out loud.

When you practice try to get three fingers in your mouth! (but only in practice).

4) Pitch

I've already mentioned pitch in relation to inflection but here I am referring to the pitch of your voice during the whole speech.

If you want to sound serious try not to speak with a high pitched voice. A high pitched voice is associated with children, excitement and anger! But beware - just because you're speaking at a lower pitch doesn't mean you don't need inflection.

Obviously if you want to sound excited, angry or enthusiastic your voice will need to be pitched a little higher.

Imagine you've just caught a fish - a big fish - and you're telling your friends all about it.

"It was this big".

Say it out loud. I hope that on the word 'this' your voice sounded excited! If you say the sentence with your voice at the same pitch all the way through it will sound very boring.

5) Pausing

Silence, when used correctly, can be much more effective than actually speaking. Speaking confidently means not being afraid of silence.

To be an effective speaker you need to pause before an important word. This gives the audience a chance to anticipate what you are about to say, which can create a kind of excitement and has a dramatic effect.

It can also be equally effective to pause after the important word. This gives the audience time to reflect on what you have just said.

Of course, to be really dramatic and to make the word or words really stand out, you can pause before and after the important word.

Obviously, during this pause you can take a breath and plan what you are going to say next.

We need to pause after each new thought.

Try reading the following paragraph out loud and time yourself.

Stephanie loves her job, and is very pleased that she did not train to become an accountant. She also enjoys her tennis lessons but sometimes thinks that her tennis coach makes her work too hard by making her run after every ball. Stephanie only wants to learn to play tennis so that she can go on a tennis holiday with her sister, who is too young to go on her own.’

It should take about 28 seconds. Remember to pause at every comma and fullstop!

In the previous example you need to pause after the first sentence. If you rush into the second sentence by the time you get to the end the listeners will know that Stephanie is pleased not to be something but they may not have caught that it was an accountant.

If you talk for too long without pausing, people, especially children will lose interest, their brains need time to think about what you have said.

Trying to listen to someone who hardly ever pauses is hard work, the listener has to try and take in what you have just said at the same time as listening to the next sentence.

After a while they will give up!

To slow yourself down try sounding all the consonants in the words, pause after every comma and full stop and remember that ‘every’ is three syllables long and not two (Evry). Open your mouth on the ‘eye’ sounds, the ‘too’ should be a long sound to differentiate it from a ‘to’. In the example I have underlined the middle and end consonant sounds and marked the pauses. ‘Stephanie loves her job, / and is very pleased that she did not train to become / an accountant. She also enjoys her tennis lessons / but sometimes thinks that her tennis coach makes her work too hard by making her run after every ball. / Stephanie only wants to learn to play tennis so that she can go on a tennis holiday with her sister, / who is too young to go on her own.’

In tennis you pause after a point, you get your breath back and give the spectators a chance to appreciate your last fantastic shot. The same applies in any sport, footballers stop playing when a goal is scored, they recover their composure and the fans go wild. Cricket, gymnastics, basketball etc are all the same. When we are speaking we must also pause.

Remember - that as well as slowing us down pausing also gives us a chance to take a breath and think ahead about the next thing we are going to say and gives the audience time to take in what we have said and perhaps laugh, groan or simply pull a face!

All speakers need this feedback (from an audience or an individual) so that we can judge if the listener has understood what we have said. If we didn’t bother to pause we could talk for a very long time before we realise that no one understands what we are saying.

Speaking confidently doen't mean being over the top and over dramatic. You can be speaking confidently but still be natural and fairly quiet (but make sure the people you're talking to can hear you). If you're confident about what you're saying and you follow the technical skills above you will be speaking confidently.

If you would like more information about speaking confidently please have a look here. Although originally written for parents to help children, many adults have found the information invaluable. Well worth a look.

Where would you like to go next?

Elocution lessons

How to breathe for speaking

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