Introduction
The way you use your voice during a presentation can keep your audience at the edges of their seats or make them fall asleep!
Use of Voice
Firstly we are going to look at how you can use your voice most effectively to ensure that you deliver presentations in a successful way. Our voices have an incredible range – we can vary our manner of speaking a great deal in order to ensure that our audience understand our message and is kept interested Let us now look at some key elements of our oral communication that relate to delivery.
Pace refers to the speed at which you speak; the degree of urgency or sharpness with which we deliver an oral communication.
We can vary the pace of delivery. We can have a rapid-fire delivery (fast pace), an even, well modulated mode of delivery (medium pace) or a very deliberate rate of delivery (slow pace). Sometimes we may feel it is appropriate to use a different pace for different parts of our delivery.
Pause refers to a small break in our delivery. A pause is the verbal equivalent of a comma or full stop. Pauses can be used to emphasise an important point, in this case we would be pausing for dramatic effect; a pause can show that we have reached the end of one point and are about to move on to the next; a pause could indicate a small break between each item in a list of things; a pause could give the audience time to absorb the previous point.
Stress is another element in oral communication. To stress a word or phrase is to emphasise it. It is the equivalent in word processing of using the Bold function. We can stress the most important word in a phrase, or we can stress the most important phrase in a sentence. Sometimes we will also inform the audience that we “wish to stress” an important point.
Volume refers to the amount of sound we make. We may speak very quietly (low volume) or use a middle range volume (medium volume) or we may speak very loudly (high volume). We must always choose the appropriate volume for our audience. It is important that we can be heard at all times and it is generally inappropriate to shout at people. An intimate one-on-one context usually calls for a low volume. If, however we are addressing a large audience we may need to increase the volume until we are speaking relatively loudly.
Intonation refers to the pitch of the voice: the rising (high) or falling (low) pitch of the voice when we say a word or syllable; or the rising and falling pattern of speech generally. Generally we need to vary our pitch or intonation in order not to sound boring and monotonous.
When we address an audience we always have a message to put across or convey. Whether or not we do this successfully will often depend not only on the content of our message but also on the delivery. The elements given above all refer to delivery. It is pointless preparing an excellent speech which we then deliver in a monotonous and boring way at an inappropriate volume – the message will not get across successfully.
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Non-verbal Communication
We have looked at the way we use our voices to convey the appropriate message to our audience. We now move on to look at a topic we glanced at in Section 1, in more detail. This topic is body language – also sometimes referred to as nonverbal communication. Our gestures, facial expressions, mannerisms, and the way we hold ourselves convey a number of messages to our audience.
Facial expressions are a very clear indicator of a wide range of emotions. For example, we can signal certain emotions by smiling to show happiness or pleasure, frowning to show anger or displeasure, raising our eyebrows to show disbelief or amazement, turning down the corners of our mouth to show disgust or disapproval, widening our eyes to show surprise.
[You can check how effectively you use these expressions by looking into a mirror and attempting to show as wide a range of emotions as possible.]
We can of course control our facial expressions in order either to not show any emotion or to show an emotion we are not feeling.
Examples of when you might disguise your feelings are:
- When you mighty be getting very bored in a meeting but need to appear interested and attentive.
- When you are irritated by someone’s attitude to you, but the context demands that you show a friendly positive response.
- When you find something, someone has said very amusing, but you need to show them you are taking them seriously, etc.
How do we ensure that our facial expressions are appropriate to the context in which we are operating? We need to be sensitive to our context in order not to convey an inappropriate message through our facial expression. For example, it would be extremely inappropriate to indicate great joy and happiness at a funeral. It would also be very inappropriate to convey through our facial expression that we found a worker’s responses to our questions extremely amusing; it would be inappropriate for us to show pleasure if a colleague gets hurt. Always be aware of the context in which you are operating.
We also need to be aware of the topic which is being presented either by ourselves or someone else and ensure that our facial expressions are appropriate to this topic. If we are presenting a talk on the toll that HIV/AIDS is having in rural areas it would be extremely inappropriate to convey amusement. If we were required to negotiate a settlement between two colleagues, it would be inappropriate to show anger and aggression.
When we are communicating orally we can use our facial expressions to help us convey our message effectively. We can also use gestures and body posture (the way we hold our body) in ways that help us to ensure our body language is appropriate to the context in which we are operating and to the topic we are presenting. Appropriate facial expressions, gestures and body posture can also help us reinforce the main ideas and attitudes we wish to convey to our audience.
The definition of a gesture is a body movement made in order to express meaning or emotion, or to communicate an instruction. Gestures send visual signs to onlookers and also transmit information.
Some examples of gestures are: throwing our hands in the air; touching our hair or clothes; wagging a finger in the air; wringing our hands; giving a “V” for victory sign; making an obscene hand gesture; punching the air in triumph, shrugging our shoulders, signalling to the waitress to bring the bill, and so on.
Our gestures can sometimes be unconscious, that is, we are not aware of making them. You should become as aware as possible of all the unconscious gestures you make which could get in the way of effective communication. For example, you may fiddle with a pen, you may keep touching your hair or clothes, you may constantly smooth your eyebrows or your moustache or play with your jewellery. All these gestures, and others like them, can be very distracting to your audience and prevent your communication from being as effective as it could be. Ask friends or family or fellow students to assist you in becoming as aware as possible of unconscious gestures you make.
Effective public speakers on the other hand, will consciously and deliberately use gestures in order to emphasise their main points and emphasise their attitude to issues.
Body posture or stance is the way we carry ourselves. Body posture often indicates what our attitude is to the interaction we are involved in and towards our audience. Body posture conveys information such as whether we are bored, attentive, relaxed or tense.
Planning for formal oral presentation
In both the previous activities you were asked to write out your speeches. Formal oral communications are always planned in the written form first in order to ensure that they are effective.
You need not write out the entire oral presentation word for word but you need to have a very detailed plan of what you are going to say written down. This means you should plan what you are going to say in your introduction, in the main body of your oral communication, and how you are going to conclude.
The introduction is always important as this is how you capture the audience’s attention from the start. A dull, boring introduction will cause the audience to loose interest and their attention may start wandering. You may want to briefly explain the purpose of your presentation and why you consider it important. You might want to use an amusing anecdote to put the audience at ease. You may want to use a startling example to grab everyone’s attention.
For example:
Which of these two examples do you think would be the most effective introduction?
Example 1: Rape is a bad thing. It is growing in South Africa. People are faced with a life sentence if they are found guilty of rape.
Example 2: Ladies and gentlemen, in the time it will take me to introduce this topic, another 5 women or children will have been raped. Think about that. This is the shocking nature of the enormous problem we all face in South Africa.
The plan for the main body of the presentation should be very detailed. You need to plan in terms of paragraphs, each one of which contains a separate important idea, or set of facts. You must ensure that there is a logical link between each of the ideas you wish to present.
For example:
Which of these two examples do you think shows the most logical and meaningful sequence of ideas to be covered in the main body of a presentation on modern music?
Example 1:
• Rap music;
• House music;
• An overview of modern music;
• The future direction of modern music;
• Well known rap stars;
• Some examples of modern music
• Well known house music DJs;
• Why youth respond to modern music;
Example 2:
• An overview of modern music;
• Why youth respond to modern music;
• Some examples of modern music
• Rap music;
• Well known rap stars;
• House music;
• Well known house music DJs;
• The future direction of modern music
The conclusion to an oral presentation represents your closing comments. It is the last impression you will leave with your audience. You may want to briefly summarise what you have covered in the main body of your presentation or you may wish to pose questions for the audience to think about. Always try to end on a high note and to create a good lasting impression. Plan your concluding remarks carefully.
When planning an oral presentation you need to be prepared to practise it out loud in order to check how long it takes to present. You need to be very clear about what the time constraints for any oral presentation are and ensure that you stick to these. If an audience is expecting a 15 minute address on something and get either a 4 minute presentation or a 30 minute one they will feel dissatisfied and your communication will not have been effective.
You also need to make sure that the content of your oral presentation is relevant to the context in which you are presenting and to the needs of your audience. Let us say you have been asked to present a talk on “The issues surrounding genetic modification of plants.” There is a great difference for example in how you would choose content for this presentation if it was for fellow learners or if it was for a meeting of gardeners who work in Stellenbosch residential area.
Thus far in Session Two we have looked at how we can use our voice, body language and meticulous planning in order to ensure effective oral communication that is sensitive to the context and the audience. Now we are going to look at yet another way of enhancing effective oral communication, namely the use of visual aids.
Use of visual aids
A visual aid can be defined as a visible instructional or educational aid; something such as a model, chart, film or video, that is looked at as a complement (addition) to a lesson or presentation.
When you communicate orally with an audience by doing a presentation or a talk, it is often helpful to use visual aids, as these will enhance your presentation and make it more effective. You should always ensure that the aids you choose are appropriate to your topic and the context of your audience. You also need to ask yourself whether your choice of visual aids is really assisting the audience to understand what you are presenting.
Here are some examples of visual aids:
- Flipcharts
- Slide projectors
- Videos & Films
- Overhead projector transparencies
- Handouts
- Whiteboards
- Graphs
- Poster
- Photos
- Power Point presentations
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When using visual aids there are certain key points to bear in mind. Always remember to:
- Ensure that the visual aids are clear and understandable;
- Prepare all your visual aids well in advance and know exactly where in the presentation you are going to use them;
- Make sure that all the equipment you will be using is in good working order and that you can use it competently;
- Ensure that the visual aids are suitable for the venue by checking that they are clearly visible from everywhere in the venue
- Ask yourself whether these visual aids will make your oral communication more effective.
We are now going to look at how you can use three specific aids in order to enhance your oral communication.
The first is cue cards. These are an aid to your own presentation and are not shown to the audience. Cue cards contain a brief summary of the main points of your presentation. You can use short phrases or simply use key words written out on cards that may be referred to when you are making an oral presentation. The purpose of this is to help you avoid reading your speech and thus maintain better eye contact with your audience. You can simply refer to the cards from time to time as your guide. It is critical that your cue cards are relevant and will serve to remind you of what you want to say. Try writing out cue cards which can act as a prompt for that particular presentation.
Handouts are another useful addition to ensuring the effectiveness of an oral communication. A handout contains the most important elements of your presentation and are handed out to the audience; either to look at as you present – in which case you can refer them to particular points on the handout; or to keep as a useful summary for their own benefit after the presentation.
Prepare a handout which you think would enhance or add to the audience’s understanding of your presentation.
Here are a few points to bear in mind when preparing handouts:
- They should be neatly presented
- They should contain the main points of your presentation
- They should be complete enough to make sense as a document on their own.
Multi-media aids refer to the use of more than one medium in your presentation, for example a video is an example of a multi media aid as it can be both an audio and a visual aid. You could also use CD’s combined with slide shows, or tapes combined with a series of graphs presented on a flipchart.
Make sure however that you do not overwhelm your audience and end up distracting them with too much technology!
You must ensure that you are confident about the way to use the visual aids you have chosen, otherwise your audience will get distracted and instead of enhancing your oral presentation you will have detracted from it.
Audience interaction & continuity
We have looked at a range of techniques you can use in order to make your oral presentation as effective as possible. Now we need to move on to look at what happens in an actual presentation. How, while you are presenting, do you maintain continuity and interaction? Continuity refers to the flow of your presentation and interaction refers to what happens between you and members of the audience. Continuity needs to be maintained at all times and interaction is to be encouraged between you and your audience.
Here are some of the elements you need to be aware of. How do you respond to queries? Responding to queries in a positive way is critical. Members of the audience might ask you to tell them more about something you have said; may want to know where to go for more information; may query some of your opinions, and so on. Always try to respond positively to a query. Thank the person for asking the question. Attempt to answer the question as clearly and as concisely as you can. If you are not sure of the answer do not pretend that you are – rather tell the questioner where he or she could find the answer or tell them, you will get back to them with the correct answer.
If you are not sure that you have understood the question that has been put to you then reword it and check whether you have clearly understood what you are being asked. This is in order to ensure clear effective oral communication.
You may also try and reword information that is quite complex so that all members of the audience can follow. An example of this might be “HIV attacks the immune system. In other words it stops the body from being able to fight off disease effectively.”
The way you time your speech or presentation is also important. Make sure that if you have two main points to put across, in order to be effective, you should allocate more or less equal time to both issues. Think back to the planned speech you gave. Were you aware of the timing issue? Timing techniques in your actual presentation are also critical. Never give the impression you are rushing over a point or are not prepared to give enough time to audience queries. This will lead to ineffective audience interaction.
For example:
Example 1:
Imagine that you have been asked to present a talk on how wine farmers can improve their stock and promote workers’ rights. You have been asked to speak for 40 minutes in total.
You might allocate your time as follows:-
15 minutes on stock improvement;
15 minutes on improving workers’ rights;
10 minutes on audience questions.
Example 2:
Plan a talk on the topic on increasing wheat production and how a skills development programme for workers would benefit the process.
15 minutes on wheat production and the seed, fertilizer and irrigation systems used.
15 minutes on the knowledge and skills which workers would gain in a skills development programme.
10 minutes on audience questions
Now let us look at how you should respond when you believe that audience contact is being lost. Let us think back to the section on body language.
Remember that body language gives us clues to how people are feeling. You must, when presenting an oral communication, be responsive to your audience.
Study their body language.
Here are some clues that contact is being lost:
- Members of the audience are restless;
- People are looking at their watches;
- People are not maintaining eye contact with you;
- People are yawning;
- People are whispering to one another;
- People are scribbling on their papers, and so on.
This is the time for you to consider using some of the techniques we have mentioned above. You could:
- Reword your information;
- Ask a question;
- Ask for questions from the audience;
- Vary your pace (speed) of delivery;
- Ensure that your voice is varied in intonation;
- Project an air of confidence through your body language;
- Make good eye contact, and so on.