4 Tips for Better Public Speaking!

Insects and spiders? Fine. Skydiving? No problem. Public speaking? Yikes! There are many fears we have, but experts would agree that the fear of public speaking is one of the most common fears shared amongst most of the world’s population — it was certainly my biggest fear growing up! However, there was no escaping from public speaking for me. When I did my tertiary education, there were countless presentations — both individual and in groups — that I had to do in the polytechnic and university. When I became an English teacher and had to teach in a secondary school, I had to speak in front of a class of forty and in front of the entire school. I had no choice but to come to terms with public speaking, and am proud and glad that I eventually overcame this fear of mine.

Hello everyone! I’m Mr Ng Guo Liang, an English Language Curriculum Specialist and Teacher at Lil’ but Mighty. I imagine that for many of you who are reading this, students and working adults alike, the anxiety that comes with public speaking is a difficult hurdle to overcome, but one that you know you’ll eventually have to. That being said, I thought that it would be meaningful to share some tips I found to be very useful myself in helping me overcome the fear of public speaking. These are things we can all do to reduce and manage the anxiety we often face when we have to make a speech or presentation.

Tip #1: Plan Your Speech Well and Plan Your Speech Early

Have you ever wondered why your school teachers, principals, and country leaders always seem so calm and collected when they deliver a speech that could last anywhere between ten and thirty minutes long? How can someone speak so calmly and move from one point to another so seamlessly for such an extended period of time? What might seem to you to be a ten- to thirty-minute speech could probably have taken hours or even days to plan for! One of the biggest causes of the fear of public speaking is the fear that we’ll make a mistake or say something wrong, and be judged as a result. The more well planned and organised your speech is, the less you’ll have to fear.

Planning your speech well can go a long way to calming your nerves when you do eventually step in front of your audience. It gives you that confidence and sense of assurance you need because you know that you’ve already planned your speech well, and all that is left is to deliver it. So whenever you see your teacher or principal on stage, or one of our nation’s ministers speaking on the television, know that a lot of time has gone into planning and preparing their speeches (with or without a script to read off from).

Think about your audience and the amount of time you have to share. Plan and prepare the points you wish to share, and the order in which they are to be shared. Ensure that you do the necessary research and that whatever you share is accurate and credible. Ask for a second or third opinion on your script from a trusted friend or teacher of yours so that you can refine your speech further. The more you plan and prepare for your script, the less reason you’ll have to fear you’ll say something wrong or silly, and the less you’ll have to fear at all!

Tip #2: Managing Your Anxiety Level Immediately before Speaking

Even with the most well planned script and the most well prepared speech, it is not uncommon to feel great fear and anxiety when the time for us to speak draws near. I think that this is the biggest challenge for people who fear public speaking — the nerves and extreme anxiety you feel before you have to speak. In the past, my heart would pump harder and faster; my hands would tremble, and my palms might even be clammy at times; and an overwhelming feeling of anxiety and fear would overtake me such that I would be almost completely oblivious to my surroundings. Have you experienced these things just minutes or seconds before you speak in public? Your experiences might perhaps be different from mine, but what is common is the anxiety most of us feel just before we speak. There is no reason to be ashamed as this happens to the best of us — I’m an English teacher and till this day, I still feel a little anxious before I have to make a speech in front of a large audience!

The feeling of anxiety before speaking is only natural and inevitable for most people. Learning of ways to deal with the nerves before we speak is very important for us to overcome the fear of public speaking. Of course, if you do a simple search on the internet, you will see that there are really many ways one can go about suppressing this anxiety.

The method which I found to be most effective, personally, is to do a simple controlled breathing exercise whenever I feel that overwhelming sense of anxiety. Whenever I feel my heart racing, I would close my eyes, block out all noises from my head and focus solely on my heartbeat, and then, I would take long and deep breaths until I feel my heart rate slowing down. I would repeat this process right up until it is my time to speak; by which time, I would be calm and ready to go. I realised that if I focus only on my heartbeat and breathing slowly, my mind is taken away from the anxiety and fear, and it will eventually calm me down.

That method works for me, and it might work for you too. My purpose here is not to dictate that you rely on my method — or on any specific method for that matter. The point I’m trying to make is that it is important that you find a method to deal with your anxiety which you find to be effective for you personally. You can try my method, or any other method which you think suits you; the most important thing is for you to find a good routine to practise whenever you feel anxious before speaking. Once you find a way to suppress your anxiety before you speak, you’ll find that it becomes much easier to speak publicly!

Tip #3: Maintaining a Relaxed Body Posture

You’ve done your pre-speech routine and managed to suppress your nerves, and are now standing in front of your audience and are ready to speak. However, your shoulders feel stiff; your chest feels tight, and your breaths are short and quick; you don’t seem to know what to do with your hands and arms and keep them stiffly by the side as if you were standing at attention, and you suddenly feel yourself getting more and more nervous as a result. What most people do not realise is that our posture and how stiff or relaxed we are physically can subconsciously affect our confidence levels. A pre-speech calming routine can definitely help you to suppress the anxiety that is in your head, but do not forget that your body must be relaxed as well.

An open and relaxed body posture and body language does not come instinctively or naturally to most who fear public speaking — it is something that you have to consciously ensure is present and always be mindful of. Before you speak, relax and loosen your shoulders first; when your shoulders are relaxed, your body immediately becomes less tense. Tell yourself to stand up straight and speak slowly; you’ll find that not only does breathing become easier, your voice projects better, and your speech will sound less hurried. Most importantly, you’ll find that standing up straight makes you look and feel more confident, which does wonders for the nerves!

Don’t stand stiffly on one spot with your hands and arms held equally stiff at your sides. Remind yourself that you can walk a few steps to your left or right as you speak to address all sides of the audience. Not only does it help make you feel more confident, from your audience’s perspective, it makes you more engaging. Use hand gestures to complement your speech too. Once you remind yourself to do these things regularly, you might even ‘forget’ that you were nervous in the first place. Your focus has moved from the fear of messing up, to ensuring that you address all of your audience members and that your body looks and feels relaxed. Remember that once your body is relaxed, you will be relaxed too!

Tip #4: Practice, Practice, Practice

When it comes to public speaking, practice does not always make perfect. There are no truly perfect and flawless presentations, and no one expects you to be perfect. Your audience members only expect you to be familiar with your speech, and to be confident when delivering it. Devoting time to practising will definitely help you to deliver a better speech. It helps to make you more familiar with the content, the order, and the pace of your speech.

I think it’s similar to learning to cook a new dish. If you only cook a dish once, you’ll never be fully confident in having to cook it well again. However, if you cook the same dish over and over again, you’ll soon be able to do it effortlessly and cook it well too — it’s the same with a speech. The more you practise your speech, the more confident you’ll be delivering it and the less nervous you’ll eventually feel. The best way to overcome anxiety is to prepare, prepare, and then prepare some more!

In this blogpost, you would have noticed that there is no guarantee or precise method I’ve given to rid you of your fear and anxiety completely. That’s because there are none that I can give. You may not be able to shake off your nerves entirely, but I am certain that with the tips I’ve provided (and others you’ve discovered from books or online), you can learn to minimise them!

This brings us to the end of this post. I hope reading it has allowed you to glean some easy and useful things you can do to minimise your anxiety and fear of public speaking. Should you wish to learn even more, you can do more extensive research on your own or even sign up for a public speaking course (which was what I did in trying to overcome my fear of public speaking!). I hope that you’ll be able to use some of the tips I’ve shared and that you’ll eventually become the great speaker I know is hidden inside of you!

Thank you, and on behalf of the Lil’ but Mighty family, stay happy, stay safe, and stay healthy!

“Discover How Lil’ but Mighty’s ‘Learn, Share, Replay’ Method Is Helping Hundreds Of Students Excel In All Sections Of The English Paper!” Now’s the chance for your child to improve by leaps and bounds in the next few weeks… and start the new academic year on the right foot!