How to IMPROVISE during your speech or presentation

Hey, welcome back to engVid. It's me, Benjamin. I'm in the middle of a sort of mini-series

of videos about how to work on speeches. Now, in my last video, I showed a system of really

looking in very close detail of how to get to know your speech. I feel that it's very

important that you know your speech so well that you have the confidence to take in, to

be present with the audience. Now, what we're looking at today is a different type of skill.

It's more can you respond in the moment to things that happen. Now, some speeches, like

the speech we looked at in the previous lesson, there is absolutely no room to start improvising

or anything like that because it's an incredibly formal speech and it wouldn't be appropriate.

But if I was, you know, giving a speech in a meeting with some colleagues and someone

comes in the door, I need to respond to that. I can't just ignore them and carry on giving

the speech. So, we're looking at knowing your speech really well, knowing the structure

of it so that if something happens, you can respond and then return to what you were doing.

And we want to avoid sounding like a parrot, sounding da-da-da-da-da-da-da all the same.

Yeah? We want to - we want to be lively. We want to be full of life. So, you need to know

the structure of your speech. Can you summarize it? What is it about? Where are you going

with it? What's like - what's the point of this speech? What are you trying to say? Could

you summarize it in one sentence? What are your key points? So, maybe you're preparing

a speech and you just need to put the speech down and tell your friend, "Hey, look, I'm

giving this speech and my speech is about investment banking. And I'm going to be saying

that Switzerland is a place to do business and that in particular, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da

I don't know anything about investment banking."

Okay, so we're going to be - I'm going to be demonstrating this with an exercise. It

could be a total disaster, but I'm going to give it a go. All right? What I'm saying is

this. You need to know the speech so well and be relaxed enough to go off-route if you

see an interesting side route.

So, to demonstrate, I'm going to try and give you directions of a journey that I know very

well. Okay? I'm going to try and give you the directions so that you would know how

to get there. Okay? That is like - that represents the basic outline of the speech. Yeah? So,

it's like I'm giving a summary of the speech. This is what it's about.

I'll then repeat the exercise. Okay? And the second time I do it, I'm going to be adding

some comments about things I know along this route. But the challenge there will be can

I still give you the directions and not go into too much detail about the interesting

things along the route. So, what I'm doing is I'm - the first time I'm practicing sticking

to a really tight structure. It's like I'm giving the speech. Yeah? This is the speech.

This point, this point, and this point. The second time, it's like I'm in the room giving

my speech, but there are some things that I'm reacting to, like so-and-so's talking,

so I'm like, "Could we have your attention?" Yep, I have a slight diversion, and then I

carry on with my speech again.

Okay, so I'm going to tell you how to get from the M5 motorway, which is in the southwest

of England, to a small town on Dartmoor called Chagford. So, you're on the motorway, okay,

and driving, driving, driving, driving, driving, and you'll see a sign for the A30. Yep, that's

a two-lane road. In England, we call it a dual carriageway. So, indicator on, turn left,

and I'm taking the green road towards Oakhampton, coming off the motorway. The road does - swings

round, okay, and then we're on this nice long road, the dual carriageway that goes all the

way down into Cornwall. And we go along here for 15, 16, 17 miles, and at some point, you're

going to see a sign towards Widden Down, yep, and you're going to come off the road, and

now you've got sort of the moorland up there on your right, and you come up, and there's

a pub on your left, so you just keep going, and then you'll see a sign for Chagford to

the left. So, it's a little roundabout, and you're going to take first left, okay? So,

we're driving down here, driving down this road. You can see some nice hills. Down, down,

down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. Could turn right, but we're going to

go left, and then the road sort of wiggles, and then it goes up a hill, then it goes - comes

down into a little sort of hamlet, a very small village, pub on your right. Go down,

go over a bridge, and then you'll get to a junction, yep, you're going to turn right

up the hill, do-do-do-do-do-do, round to the left, down the hill, along the straight, do-do-do-do-do-do,

and then you start coming into the town of Chagford.

Why on earth did I just give you some directions? Because what you need to do when you're giving

a speech is to try and talk it out loud, to summarize it to someone else. Because if you

can do that, it means that you know your speech. I proved to myself that I know the way from

the M5 to Chagford, because I could talk it out loud. A lot of people, more sort of introverted

people, don't like speaking out loud. They'll just study and do all the kind of reading

and writing. You've got to practice speaking out loud, okay?

Now I'm going to do the same thing, but I'm going to see some distractions along the route.

The distractions are things that I know about this journey, okay? But if you were actually

doing a speech, it would be noticing things. As I said, not every speech is it appropriate

for you to start improvising. You're going to have to judge that yourself.

Okay. Notice if there's any difference between the instructions I give first time and second

time, okay? So, we are on the motorway, the M5, so it's got blue signs for motorways.

And you're going to turn left to Oakhampton. My dad used to work in Oakhampton. And you

come down, following the signs for Oakhampton, you come down towards the A30, and that goes

all the way down to Cornwall. And you're going to go on here for about 16 miles. I remember

driving down here when I was learning to drive. I managed to persuade my driving instructor

to pick my friend up from the station, and I think the driving instructor quite liked

my friend. Anyway, that's another story. So, we're driving down. After about 16 miles,

you're going to see the sign up to Widdondown. Now, it used to be different. There used to

be a roundabout there, but that was a bit dangerous, so they built something else. It's

a new system. And then up you go, and there's a very sort of smart service station on the

right for getting petrol, but we don't need petrol. We're going to Chagford, aren't we?

Up we go up the hill, get to a little roundabout, turn left. Now, you used to be able to turn

left before that, but you weren't really meant to go along that bit. Anyway, we're going

down the correct route. Now, interestingly, I once walked up here with my dog and a friend

called Harry because we wanted to catch the bus to go to Launceston. Anyway, we're going

to Chagford, so we're going down here. Down, down, down, down, down, down, down. I remember

driving my Citroen 2CV down this road, and it broke down somewhere around here, and then

we got picked up by some guys and they took us to a pub. And as we were climbing into

the back of the car, we saw that they had a large bucket full of dead rabbits. Anyway,

that's another story. Off we go to Chagford. Okay, and round here is where they have Chagford

Show, but that's in the summer; it's not on now. Turn right, up we go, and we're... Ooh,

look, we can see beautiful Dartmoor. Isn't it looking so lovely? What a gorgeous town.

And down we go. It was a really bad motorbike crash here once. Anyway, up we go. I went

to school there in the primary school, and we're in Chagford.

So, do you see? The second time round, I still took you there, I still gave you the directions

to Chagford, but when I had thoughts in my head, I expressed them. Yeah? What I'm trying

to say is that when you're giving a speech and it's not a strictly formal environment

and something happens, you can respond to it. If you have thoughts that occur to you

when you're giving a speech, you can add them. Okay? Just as long as you're not the President

of America and you're going from a scripted piece. Okay? It's not always appropriate to

go off route. Okay, I'm going to show you some phrases now that you can use if people

say stuff to you when you are giving a speech. So, I was just speaking to my cameraman who

was telling me about when he gave a speech at a wedding. Now, something like that is

a perfect example of when going slightly off topic and responding to, you know, friends

and comments, it's a more sort of informal atmosphere. So, it's exactly that kind of

situation that it's okay to go off on little diversions as long as it's not too long. Yeah?

You've got to keep the structure. The structure is I'm trying to get you to Chagford. Yeah?

The structure of your speech might be that you've got to say that your best friend is

an amazing guy. Yeah? That's where we're going, but occasionally we take little side roads.

So, if you need to get back onto the main road, we can say things like "quite". Yeah?

Someone says something. "Quite" means, yeah, exactly. Now be quiet. "Quite" or "absolutely".

You've hit the nail on the head there. It means, yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right.

But by me saying a comment, it means that I am back with the steering wheel. Yeah? It's

my... It's my journey, here, not yours. Yeah? You're absolutely right, but I'm still taking

you to Chagford. Well, you certainly could argue that. Now, some of these are better

in a social context, and some are better in business. "Quite", that's... The tone of that

is quite serious. "Quite", yeah, the sound of it is quite sort of precise. "Quite". Absolutely.

You've hit the nail on the head, there. So, that idiom is, I'd say, kind of... Well, you

could use it in both contexts. It depends. You certainly could argue that. That's a bit

more formal. Of course, I think the thing to bear in mind is, that's quite formal, the

thing to bear in mind, the thing to carry on thinking about.

Anyway, back to the topic in hand. In hand. This is the thing we are talking about. Back

to the topic in hand. Or, I digress, which means I go off topic, and now I'm coming back

on topic. Okay? Right. How do you get to have the confidence to improvise and make stuff

up? Well, there are improv groups in most cities around the world. Excellent way of

improving your English, as well, to go along to an improvisation class. Have fun, make

some friends, watch, learn, enjoy. Also, this kind of stuff comedians do all the time. They're

always going off-route on their destination, which is kind of, I don't know, maybe the

punchline of a joke.

So, for those of you who are less familiar with my videos, they're not always quite as

mad as this one. Sometimes I teach you, like, really serious business English or some exam

English. So, do subscribe so you get other stuff that will help you improve your English.

Thanks for watching, and good luck getting to your destinations.