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Research and Write the Scripts for Your Speech
The first and foremost thing in public speaking preparations that you should do is to write out your script. The truth of the matter is that most people who have ample experience in public speaking still find that they need much preparations before making their speech public. So you think that you could just stand in front of a crowd with an outline of a few pointers and speak off the cuff. You will certainly find your speech an absolute failure and thoroughly embarrass yourself before your audience.
The Content of Your Speech Requires Preparation
Whatever content you are delivering in your speech, you have to research your topic, think them through and organise them. In the process of building your content, you will find that you will need to go through several rounds of editing. Without preparation, you will be at a loss at what you want to say at the point of your speech. You will experience mental constipation. Your content will be in an absolute random mess and your audience will agonise to comprehend what you are trying to say.
Even as a former teacher who used to teach Mathematics day in and day out for decades, I had always found that my first lessons were never good enough. Mentally I took note of what should have been said, what should not have been said, and how should the presentation be reorganised as I taught each lesson again and again to different classes. After several repetition of the same lesson with different classes, I eventually found the lesson got better and the flow of my presentation too.
Your Grammar Needs Correcting
You cannot speak better than you write. I presume that most of the people who are reading my articles are non-English native speakers. That means that your grasp of the English language is far from excellent. Then I am sure that whenever you write a piece of composition, it will be full of grammatical flaws and imperfection.
Face it! You cannot speak as well as you write. If you can, then you should just speak into a dictation app on your computer and your computer will type out a perfectly written book ready to be published and sold. Such people exist but they are extremely rare and most certainly, you are not one of them.
You need to go through your script and make all the grammatical correction either using a software or asking another person to help you check your grammar. Each time I go through the articles that I have written, I have never failed to find new mistakes or decide to make more changes to improve them.
Besides perfecting your grammar, you also have to restructure your sentences and pepper them with rhetorical devices to make a greater impact in your speech. People who seem to speak fluently spontaneously in public are those who already have a strong command of the language. Nevertheless, they still need to research and organise the content of the speech and that requires preparation.
Preparation Minimises Pause Fillers
At a Toastmasters Chapter Meeting, there is a role called the “Ah-Counter”. The “Ah-Counter” will count each and every person who has spoken during the meeting the number of times they used words like “ah”, “er”, “um”, “okay”, etc. These are what toastmasters call pause fillers. As we speak in our daily conversation, we pause to think about what we want to say next.
Each time we pause, we utter words like these while we think about how we are to continue with our sentences. There are people who fills up every sentence they speak with 5 to 10 such pause fillers. Take for example, “Today, … ah, ah, ah, … erm … we are gathered here ah, to show ah our appreciation to, ah, ah, ah, Mr and Mrs ah, erm, See, ah, Seetoh, for ah serving faithfully in our ah ah organisation for ah 10 years ah ah.”
Preparing your script beforehand enables you to know exactly what the words you are going to use. Rehearsing your scripts ensure that those words and sentences are organised and formulated clearly in your head and will be spoken out of your mouth smoothly.
Public Speaking Requires Preparation
So you have research the content, corrected your grammar. What is next? Are you going to just read from your scripts during your speech? Absolutely not! I believe you know what I mean by reading from your scripts. We all have listened to many people reading from their scripts in public speaking. Such public reading (not public speaking) is an excellent cure for insomnia.
Many students do exactly that when they are asked to read a passage in class. These students continue to do the same in their project presentations. Sadly, many of us continue to do the same in our adult life whenever we have to speak publicly or make a presentation.
There are many skills and techniques in public speaking that will be taught to you in Toastmasters. Use of body language, use of rhetorical devices, variation of the speed and rhythm of your speech are just a few of the many things that you will learn to use in public speaking when you join Toastmasters.
So after preparing the script for your speech, you have to go through in your head and visualise how you are going to deliver your speech. These are the things that are going to give form to the script you have written. Your script is the substance, the delivery is the form. However, without first preparing your script, there is nothing for you to give any form to.
So as the saying goes, “If you fail to plan (prepare), you plan (prepare) to fail” and in this case, you are going to fail in your public speaking if you do not prepare your script.
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