English Public Speaking Skills | How to Speak So Your Audience Listens

Have you ever stepped on a stage to give a presentation in English or

shared an idea with five of your coworkers in a meeting and

instead of everyone looking at you with excitement,

waiting for your next word and then telling you that was awesome.

When you're finished,

all you see are faces that are confused or lost,

and you get that sinking disappointed feeling that

they didn't understand or they didn't care about what you had to say.

If you've ever had that experience, you are absolutely not alone.

I've had it as well. Public speaking is a skill.

It's a skill that native and non-native speakers alike in every language

work to improve. The good news is because it's a skill,

it is something that you can learn, practice,

and excel in.

If you want to confidently give a presentation in English and know that your

audience wants to listen to every word you have to say, it's simple.

The key is to speak so your audience listens.

Now, you might be wondering, how do I do that?

And that's what I'm gonna share with you today. I've got three tips to help you,

But before I get there, if you don't already know, I'm Annemarie,

an English confidence and fluency coach.

Everything I do is designed to help you get the confidence you want for your

life and work in English. If you'd love to get all of my past lessons,

including many lessons focused on public speaking and presenting,

or if you'd like to get some of my free resources, including my in-depth,

How to Say What You Want in English training,

you can visit my website at speakconfidentenglish.com. Now,

before I get to the first of three tips I want to share with you to help you

speak so your audience listens.

I want to remove or eliminate some unnecessary stress

you might have about presenting in English.

You do not need highly advanced vocabulary or years

of public speaking experience to give a presentation in English

that is captivating to your audience.

I know there's so much pressure to use really high level vocabulary

and complicated grammar structures, but as you'll find out soon,

those can actually be more harmful than good in a presentation.

With each tip that I have for you today,

I will also share examples or demonstrate how to apply it

so you can immediately put it into practice and speak in a

way that makes others want to listen to every word.

And then if you want more on this topic,

I have additional lessons such as five tips for confident public speaking

and four steps to control your voice.

I'll leave links to both of those lessons in the notes below the video,

and now let's get started with tip number one.

Know your audience before you do anything,

before you give your presentation,

before you even begin writing your presentation,

it's important to take a little bit of time to know your audience.

Now of course, this doesn't mean to know each person individually,

but rather know who will be listening to you.

What do they know about your topic?

What do they not know about your topic? What do they think,

feel or believe about the topic of your presentation? For example,

are you sharing an idea with your coworkers who already have all the

same background information that you do? If that's the case,

you don't need to share all that background information or are

you speaking to an audience who shares your enthusiasm for a particular topic

like learning new watercoloring techniques?

Maybe you're presenting on a topic your audience knows nothing about,

like how to use AI in the workplace. Again,

knowing your audience means understanding what they currently know,

what they don't know, what they think,

feel and believe about the topic you're going to present on.

The reason this is so important is when you know the answers to those questions,

it gives you the ability to make better decisions about what to

include in your presentation so you keep your audience's attention

instead of making them feel bored or lost.

Let me give you an example.

Let's say your boss has asked you to give a presentation to the board of

directors at your company.

Your job is to talk about the harmful effects of a particular

chemical your company is using.

The problem is this chemical is very cost-effective In your

presentation to the board of directors to give support to your position,

you might include data from a recent scientific study and this study

highlights the negative impacts of this particular chemical.

You may notice at some point while speaking that your audience has become

disinterested or bored, what's happening?

Why aren't they interested?

Perhaps they already have all that background information.

They have the same information you have from that scientific study.

There's nothing new in your presentation, and as a result,

they've lost interest. So how can you avoid this?

How can you avoid giving information to your audience that they already know?

Or how can you avoid losing your audience because you didn't give

them information that they needed? The answer is simple.

Before you begin planning your presentation,

you need to ask yourself a few questions about your audience. Question one,

who's coming to your presentation or who's coming to the business meeting?

Why does your presentation matter to those individuals?

Why should your audience care about this topic?

What does your audience currently know on this topic and

what don't they know? What do they need to know?

What do they need to know to make better decisions or take action?

With those questions in mind, let's revisit that scenario and this time,

let's imagine that you've done your research,

you know who your audience is.

You know that most people in your audience will be women in their forties and

fifties, most of them have children.

Your audience is focused on balancing costs or expenses,

and you know that your audience has received the same scientific report

that you've received highlighting the negative impacts of a particular

chemical, so they already have some of the same knowledge you have.

Now when you prepare your presentation,

you can leave out most of the background information about that scientific study

and instead highlight just one or two of the most important key points,

particularly the key points that might indicate the negative effects of this

chemical on children and families,

and then you can quickly move into sharing information about an

alternative chemical that is equally cost effective.

Using this strategy will help you ensure that your information

resonates with or feels relevant to your audience, and as a result,

they will listen. Now,

tip number two to help you speak so your audience listens,

is to keep your language simple.

I know there's so much pressure and this belief that we need to use

advanced love of vocabulary,

complicated grammar structures and long sentences,

and I'm here to tell you, you do not need to do that. In fact,

doing so might cause you to lose your audience.

The reason is, when we use simpler language,

it is easier to understand what is being said in a

presentation. We're usually sharing a lot of information.

There are many details to follow,

and in some cases the topic might be very complex,

so if we use complicated vocabulary and difficult to follow

grammatical structures, we will lose our audience.

Let me share with you a few specific examples of how you can

keep your language simple. Number one,

avoid complex statistics or examples.

For example, if I said, imagine

1,317,475,321

people, I don't even know if I said that number right?

It's really hard to imagine that number.

It doesn't mean anything to us. Instead,

if I say,

imagine the person sitting next to you or look at

this room and look at the 20 people in front of you,

imagine two of those 20 people,

those smaller numbers are real. We understand them,

we can feel them,

and that statistic or the example we need to give suddenly becomes more

relevant because it's simpler. Anytime you can use a story,

a smaller number, a graphic or a chart,

it will help you get your point across and your listeners are more

likely to stay engaged with you.

The second thing you can do is avoid elaborate words or phrases. For example,

rather than use in order to just use two rather than

the word reconceptualize,

use reimagine rather than due to the fact that

use due to or since.

The third thing to avoid is long,

complex sentences or run on sentences and finally,

limit your use of jargon or avoid it completely.

Now,

let me talk for a moment about why I said limit your

jargon or avoid it completely. We have a choice here.

Let's go back to tip number one. Know your audience.

If you're in finance and you're presenting to an audience

and everyone in your audience works in the same industry,

then you all have the same language. You all use the same jargon,

so if you use jargon in your presentation, they will understand it.

However,

if you work in finance and you're speaking to an audience that doesn't

work in the same industry,

they're coming to your presentation to get tips on how to save

for retirement and limit their spending,

you will likely lose your audience if you use too much

jargon, so it's best to avoid it in those circumstances. Now,

the last thing I'll tell you about keeping your language simple is typically

in English speaking culture, we communicate in a way that is clear,

direct, and obvious.

Your English speaking audience doesn't really want to read between the lines.

They don't want to try to figure out what you mean.

When you keep your language simple, you're helping your audience.

It makes it easy to understand they can follow you and they're going to be more

interested in what you have to say. They will want to listen.

And tip number three to speak so your audience listens,

is to acknowledge the needs of your audience and speak to

them accordingly.

What this means is acknowledge or be aware of the

fact that your audience needs time to think.

They need time to think about what you've said, understand it and process it,

and that means you need to speak in a way that gives your audience

that time. How can you successfully do that?

How can you successfully adjust the way you speak so that your

audience has what it needs? The first thing you can do,

don't rush.

I know there's this idea that being fluent means speaking fast,

but the truth is when we speak too fast,

no one can follow what we're saying.

They don't have time to think about the words that we're using or understand.

Let me say all of that again,

if I can really fast so that you can hear what it sounds like.

How can you successfully do this?

How can you successfully adjust your speech so that others have time to

understand? Number one, don't rush. If you speak too fast,

no one has time to think about or process what you have to say, and I,

I think I'm making a lot of mistakes. It's really hard to speak that fast.

It's hard to speak that quickly without making a lot of mistakes.

Your listeners need time, and as a speaker,

I actually need time too, so don't rush.

Allow yourself to slow down when you speak. It's okay.

That leads me to the second thing you can do. Use pauses.

I love to talk about the power of the pause. My Fluency School students,

you know what I'm talking about,

pauses when speaking are your friend.

They help you have that smoother pace and they can also

help you add more vocal variety.

They can help you bring focus to important words.

I have a lesson on how to improve vocal variety and how to use emphasis.

That lesson includes more details on how to use pauses. To do that,

I'll share a link in the notes below.

The third thing you can do to acknowledge the needs of your audience and speak

to them accordingly is to wait patiently.

This is an important tip.

Anytime you're having a dialogue or a q and a session, for example,

if you ask a question to your audience or to your coworkers in a business

meeting,

they need time to think about your question and to formulate their answer.

So after you pose the question, just wait patiently,

allow for some silence.

It can be uncomfortable at the beginning to get used to those five or

ten second periods of time that are just silent, but trust me,

your audience will be grateful.

The last thing you can do to acknowledge the needs of your audience is to

look at your audience, make eye contact with them.

This is important for two reasons. Number one,

you can read their body language and facial expressions.

You can see if they're following you or if they're not,

and you can make quick adjustments in your presentation if you need to.

The second reason this is important is it makes the audience feel

more connected to you. It makes it more of a personal experience,

and as a result, the audience feels more engaged,

so make eye contact with your audience while you're speaking.

I know that can be a bit scary and create more anxiety,

so here's a recommendation,

alternate between looking individuals in the eye and then looking

just above the heads of your audience toward the back of the room.

This will give you a little bit of a break from that eye contact and help reduce

any of that anxiety. Now that you have these tips on how to speak,

so your audience listens, I want to hear from you,

what advice do you have based on your experience to connect

to your audience in an engaging way?

Is there a strategy you've used that has been particularly helpful? If so,

I would love for you to share it because your advice might be exactly what

someone else needs. Second,

if you have experience giving a presentation in English or if you have

to give a presentation in English soon, what are your concerns?

What challenges do you continue to experience?

You can share those with me below,

and it just might be the topic of one of my upcoming Confident English lessons.

Thank you so much for being here. It really means a lot to me.

If you found this helpful,

I would love to know and you can tell me in a very simple way,

give this lesson a thumbs up here on YouTube, and while you're at it,

subscribe to my YouTube channel so you never miss one of my Confident English

lessons. Thanks again and I'll see you next time.