Speaking well

Every one talks but only a few speak well, this is prevalent in today’s society, especially in a country like Nigeria where there’s an infusion of native languages with the English language. Many a time, we fail to understand the science of speaking and its accompanying act, as this is far more important in passing the intended message.

Today, we will explore the term, speaking well, especially in public speaking. This is important since quite a number of people will at one stage of their lives speak to a group. From experience, I have come across individuals who have been unable to speak well when facing a crowd, they either lose concentration or get intimidated by the eyes staring at them when they stand tall to deliver their speeches.

Taking feedback from the management communication faculty on why our appearance matters a lot when we stand to speak, as this helps to capture the attention of the audience, registering a sense of authenticity and master in that subject area.

Speaking well involves having a good understanding of your audience, thus giving you an insight into the choice of words that will help create an understanding of the subject, as the speaker will use words inappropriate for the group. The simplicity of language matters a lot as there has been a mismatch of the choice of words to different set of individuals without a conscious understanding of their depth of knowledge in the subject area.

Our voice is a factor in speaking well, taking a clue from a TEDx event (recorded and available on YouTube). The voice is a great tool that conveys messages about the subject, and people explore the different characteristics of the speaker’s voice. The depth/ richness of a voice communicates a speaker well vested in the art and knowledgable, thus gaining the approval of the audience.

When the pitch is high, there is a sense of urgency perceived, while the speaker might be seen to be in trouble. For the volume; how loud it is, we sense a pause or low tone communications very important as we don’t want to lose a bit of those words being passed. An example of these can be seen in our childhood phase, when our mothers inform us of an essential task, she tends to reduce the volume of her voice, giving us the message in low tones.

These techniques have been deployed in various art of communication aside speaking to the public, and they take note of the following; registering their presence in the hearts of their audience, the timbre of their voice, the associated prosody, the pitch used, the pace of words churned out and finally, the volume of their voice.

Hacking those, allows rich conversations around the subject, I believe as we employ these tactics and practice more, we are able to grab the attention of our audience and in turn pass the salient points of our speeches.

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