Our public speaking teacher didn’t like debates. She said they taught people to think on their feet but they didn’t really express feelings. She said good public speakers felt passionately about their subject. I was doubtful about this at first but she was right. When people loved their subject their speeches were so much better. She then went on to say we couldn’t always speak about something we loved but we could take an angle about something, develop it and then begin to feel strongly about it. We spent hours between classes looking up subjects in the library, this was in the days before the internet, and asking people their opinion on topics.
She insisted that we listened to the radio too. So, as a city based group, we dutifully listened to agricultural reports in case she asked us to speak about the market for pigs. We listened to religious programmes and topical programmes. She made us criticise those speakers we heard, telling her how and why they made mistakes. In other words she opened up our minds and told us listen and learn.

Check out our sample speeches

Share on Facebook

Our public speaking teacher started giving us impromptu speeches and how we dreaded these at first. We never knew if we were going to be asked to speak about the men on the moon or mirrors. Baffled by the latter subject I asked my father, a skilled public speaker, what he would say about mirrors. He said the mistake I was making was that I assumed that people knew what mirrors were before I spoke about them. So there was little I could add beyond that they were on the wall and you could see yourself in them… Explain what they are to people who have never seen one he told me and that was another lesson learned.

Check out our sample speeches

Share on Facebook

Our public speaking teacher gave us exercises to do and we felt so silly shaking our hands and doing deep breathing exercises that we began to relax with each other. She then asked us to read short sentences until we got used to the sound of our own voices. One week she asked us all to bring in our favourite book and read from it. You would be very surprised at the choices people made. Mary, for instance, loved a blood and guts thriller while our genius went in for what most men would consider as rather soppy poetry. Little by little we were beginning to understand each other and become friends rather than classmates.

Soon the teacher had us speaking about subjects she chose for us. Being a writer I thought I would have no problem at all in writing my speeches. I soon discovered, however, that reading to be said and read are two completely different things. People who are reading can take in more or look back over something you write. When you are speaking your audience has to understand immediately. It is, if you like, a more immediate type of writing.

Check out our sample speeches

Share on Facebook

The people in my public speaking group were varied. There was an aspiring politician and a trade union negotiator both of whom were doing the course for obvious reasons.

The rest of us, however, were a mixed bunch. There was a retired teacher who was full of fun and who became the light and soul of the group. She wore haute couture and was always immaculately turned out. There was an architect who had to speak in his job and who had a dreadful problem pronouncing his TH sounds. There were housewives and business people and young students. There were those who just came to try out the course and there was a genius who looked the part of the nutty professor. Above all there was Mary. Mary was an elderly lady who whispered her name in trembling tones and told us she was too shy to speak in public. She quickly became the class mascot. If Mary could learn to speak in public anyone could.

Check out our sample speeches

Share on Facebook

I looked for classes that would help me become a public speaker… I enrolled in a speech and drama class. The teacher spoke as though she was in the Royal Shakespeare society and did lots of reading with us. We learned to speak in parts. To this day I can recite three of the verses of the twelve days of Christmas. I have discovered, however, that the need for this is rather limited in the real world

So I decided to try another class. I joined a public speaking group this time. It was a once weekly night class. Our teacher was Hungarian and her command of English was brilliant. She was kind and understanding and began by asking us to introduce ourselves
and to say why we were doing the course. That was my introduction to the fascinating world of public speaking.

Our Linking Partners
—————————–

Top Sites Web Blog Directory – Add your Link Free Submission & Exchange – SEO friendly web directory of top sites & blogs organized by topic into categories and presented according to relevance of website. Submit your website free.

Check out our sample speeches

Share on Facebook

It took me six years to become a public speaker and much longer to become a speech-writer.

Like most people I rarely had occasion to speak in public. Occasionally, when I was at school meetings I would have liked to have asked a question but was too shy. I hated myself for that but, usually, someone else asked the question anyhow. When I was asked to give a report on some parish work I had done I didn’t really consider it as public speaking. I had enjoyed the work and I knew everyone in the room for years. Yet when I stood up my confidence vanished. I stuttered and stammered. My hands shook so much I dropped my notes and to my huge embarrassment, I started to cry. My friends were very nice and understanding but I swore that would never happen to me again. I would, however long it took, become a public speaker.

Check out our sample speeches

Share on Facebook

Stand on a chair and shout if you have to.

It is a lovely evening, perhaps the last of the southern hemisphere’s summer. The crowd have gathered on the top floor of the museum for the opening of an exhibtion. There is wine, canapes, a little background traffic noise. There is a great sense of expectation. There will be speeches. Being late, I’m at the back grabbing a glass of wine and accepting a canape. Someone of the far side of the room is talking. I think, because I can’t see and to be honest I can’t hear. Neither can anybody not in the front row of the circle that has gathered around the vertically challenged, mumbling speaker. I don’t know how long the poor chap worked on the speech. I don’t even know what it’s about. I’m too busy accepting more canapes and looking around for something that will signal the end and a need to applaud. I wonder how many basic simple things might have been changed to make this a speech to remember?

I wonder again, what a waste of a speech opportunity this is.

Check out our sample speeches

Share on Facebook

Why wait? – Do it now.

Today’s speech is on Procrastination. Motivating myself to write this speech was ironically rather hard. I felt in good company – in fact the more I thought about it, the more it seemed that putting things off, might well be the one thing that unites every one on the entire planet. The reasons and excuses being as varied and creative as the day is long. And there is only one cure. Sitting down, doing it, minute by minute, word by unpalatable word. That’s how speeches get written then; even one on procrastination.

Check out our sample speeches

Share on Facebook

You know the conversation starter. It’s the one struggling before the groan, ‘so what do you?’ Depending on how far I want to take it, I might just say, I work with computers. That’s a little misleading and I like to come across as a little more interesting. So I might and do say, I’m a writer. This is a mistake. The answer inevitably is, so what do you write?
Speeches, I say, I’m a speechwriter. There is normally a break at this point. How interesting, some say. Others say, I never imagined someone could make a living at writing speeches. A third group intrigued by the possibilities ask, so who do write speeches for?

Anyone I say, anyone with a speech to give: graduations, birthdays, eulogies, awards ceremonies, business proposals, conference speeches, motivational speeches, persuasive, informative, the list is endless: the job absorbing, challenging and entirely fascinating. I’ll stand up and give a speech on it one day.

Check out our sample speeches

Share on Facebook