This is an activity you can do by yourself or with someone whose opinion you trust. Think about a subject that you feel really strongly about. If you had to explain that subject to someone else, how would you do it?

Would you be…

If you’re going to give a presentation, you need to have something to speak about! If you haven’t already been given a subject to talk about, spend some time now, thinking about what topic you’ll choose.

Here are some things to think about:

• What topic interests you?
• Why is it important to you?
• Why should your audience be interested?
• What do you want your audience to know, feel and do as a result of your speech?

Finally, choose one major idea to talk about and summarise it in a single sentence. If you can’t easily summarise it, your speech is too complex. Simplify it and then write it down.

When you come to planning your speech in more detail, you can use this idea statement to keep your speech on track.

Our simulation activity is designed to put the public speaking skills you’ve learned to the test. You can use this opportunity to practise a presentation you’ve already prepared, or you can use one of our ready-prepared presentation decks.

If you want to upload your own presentation, you will need to do the following:

1. Make sure you have an account on Bodyswaps Go. Your tutor or trainer can help you with this.
2. Create your presentation slides using your preferred software package and then export a copy in PDF format.
3. Upload your PDF presentation to the Documents tab in Bodyswaps Go.

The next time you launch the Bodyswaps app, your presentation will be available for selection in the simulation. You can find more information about uploading documents to Bodyswaps here

Like all life skills, anxiety management techniques improve with practice.

Commit the 5 steps of the grounding technique to memory:

• 5 things you can see
• 4 things you can feel
• 3 things you can hear
• 2 things you can smell
• 1 thing you can taste

Practise this at non-stressful times - at home, on the bus, at lunch, in the morning, in the evening…

Then, try practising the technique during mildly stressful events. Maybe you can’t find something or somebody says something that annoys you. Before you react, do the grounding countdown.

When you can calm your mind and focus on the present without needing to go all the way through the countdown from 5 to 1, you’re on your way to becoming a zen master!

In the training, we saw how important eye contact is for building trust and holding the attention of an audience. But if you’re talking to an audience, you can’t make eye contact with all the people all the time, so what should you do?

The secret is that you don’t have to look at every person in the room to make it feel like you are talking to everyone in the room.

Here’s an activity you can do in a group setting:

Take it in turns to be the speaker. When it’s your turn, stand in front of your audience and ask everybody to raise their hand in the air and hold it there until you look at them.

1. Mentally divide the audience into three sections
2. Focus on the person in the middle of the middle section for 3-5 seconds and see how many people around them lower their hands.
3. Now focus on the person in the middle of the left side of the room. Then do the same with the person in the middle of the right side of the room.
4. Keep moving your focus until nobody has their hand raised.

In the training, we looked at some vocalises you can do to train and warm up your voice. But you don’t need to stop there. Watch this video and try the exercises demonstrated.

They look kind of funny, so you might want to do them in private, but it’s worth it! Not only will these exercises help you to speak more clearly, but they’re great face yoga to keep wrinkles and double chins at bay!

In the training, we saw Nola giving a speech about the importance of verbal pacing. The accompanying journal article contains a transcript of her speech. Looking at the transcript, highlight the sentences that you think would be most effective delivered fast or slow.

Try reading it out loud, altering the pace to match your notes.

Listen to how others have chosen to deliver the speech. Have you interpreted its delivery in the same way or differently?

Do different rates of delivery affect how you engage with or interpret the words?

In this activity, we looked at three different ways of structuring a speech with a beginning, middle and end. Here are those strategies again:

If you’re speaking to inform, stick to the facts.

• Begin with a hook - a question, a joke or an interesting fact or statistic
• Focus the middle around three key points
• End with a call to action - what do you want your audience to do?

If you’re speaking to influence, appeal to your audience’s emotions.

• Begin by identifying a problem that your audience cares about
• Use the middle to present your solution - evidence your claims with examples, comparisons, metaphors, case studies and stories.
• End by saying it again - reframe the problem and solution to drive your point home

If you’re speaking to inspire, tell your audience a story.

• Begin by setting the scene - who is the hero? What’s their mission?
• Introduce the conflict - something that will hold your audience’s attention
• Describe the climax - what was the outcome? What was the point of telling this story?

Watch Adora Svitak’s (2010) Ted Talk - What adults can learn from kids - and try to identify the essence of the beginning, middle and end of her speech. Was she speaking to inform, influence or inspire?

Here are two more Ted Talks you might like to watch, while you think about structuring your speech:

Shane Koyczan (2013) - To this day… for the bullied and beautiful

Gever Tulley (2007) - 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do

Do they fit into any of these strategies? Hint: one of them breaks the beginning, middle, end rule. Can you tell which one it is? Do you think it matters? Would you do anything differently with this speech yourself?