Public Speaking-  How to Practice Your Speech and Be a Bigger Success

Truth be known, lots of people don’t even practice their speech out loud with their voice even once.

A speech’s purpose is to be heard, with a voice– yours. Do yourself a favor and your audience, practice with your voice.

Accepted by experts is to begin practicing your speech at least several days before delivering it.  Expert recommend practicing your speech about five times in its final form.   Since few speeches are longer than twenty minutes and most are shorter, that means a maximum of two hours of practice time.

Checklist for Practicing Your Speech:

1. Practice with your speaking notes.
2. Change the parts of your speech that aren’t satisfying and revise your speaking notes as you go. Listen to yourself. If it sounds stilted, stiff, too academic, it is!
3. Focus on communicating your ideas, not on yourself. Avoid being one-note Johnny or Joanna– “me, me, me.”
4. Visualize the setting – project your words to different parts of the room to reach audience members. Rule of thumb, eye contact with one person per sentence.
5. Time each part of your speech – introduction, body, and conclusion
6. Practice the speech under realistic conditions, paying attention to projecting your voice (make it loud enough to be heard!) and using speaking notes unobtrusively.
7. Do you like to audio record and/or video record? If so, record and review to determine your likes and dislikes. But don’t substitute for the optimal five practices.
8. If possible practice in front of at least one volunteer, and seek constructive feedback of likes or dislikes.
9. Schedule your practice sessions early in the process so you have adequate time to prepare the entire speech.
10. So important it’s worth repeating yet another time—Practice your speech at least five times. If you can’t do five, anything is better than zero…. go for three time, two times– and if your mind and body say, “Hey, I can do another practice”… go for it.

Be sure to watch our English Speech Tips videos and Accent Reduction Tip videos  for more English pronunciation and accent reduction exercise to nail great pronunciation

Clear, accurate American English speech is a procedural skill. Best learning happens with distributed or spaced learning. It takes 70 days of practice of a skill to make it a habit. That’s why our courses are 70 consecutive days for the coaching interval.

Be sure to check out the weekly into months self learning program, our proven subscription called ClearTalk Weekly—video and audio tutoring– you access 24/7 www.subscription.cleartalkmastery.com It works for people new to the admirable goal of making their English speech better for career and for life. It works for people who have done a coached course but was to rev up their accuracy.