Watkins Mill High School
Watkins Mill HS - Study Skills Handbook
Social Studyies Department
Public Speaking
The six steps to effective speaking!
- Know your material
Practice your speech or presentation and revise it if necessary! If you’re not familiar with your material or are uncomfortable with it, your nervousness will increase!
- Visualize yourself giving the speech
Imagine yourself speaking, your voice loud, clear, and assured! When you visualize yourself successful, you will be successful!
- Realize that people want you to succeed!
They don’t want you to fail! Your listeners want you to be interesting, stimulating, informative, and entertaining!
- Turn nervousness into positive energy
Harness your nervous energy and transform it into vitality and enthusiasm!
- Gain experience
Experience builds confidence, which is the key to effective speaking!
- Express, Express, Express!
Stress the importance of inflection of voices when speaking to an audience! Remember to make eye contact, your reading rate, and the fluency of your content!
