Tips on Public Speaking?

[Jaycee]

Hi there. Tomorrow in my Communication Arts class, I will have to give a 2 minute, 30 second speech based on a persuasive essay I recently wrote. My topic is voting age, and why it should stay and 18 (my opponent says it should be raised to 21). Problem is, I'm a nervous person. While I'm very social outside of classwork, speaking in front of a crowd scares me half to death! (See : 5th grade when I froze up and wouldn't speak a word) Are there any tips you guys could give me on how to not be nervous? I have to be a strong speaker to get a decent grade. :/ Even the thought of doing this speech is making me nervous; my hands are shaking so I've had to backspace a lot while typing this to fix things.

tl;dr : Please help a nervous 8th grader with speaking in front of ~ 25 of his peers for 2 and a half minutes.

Thanks,

~Jaycee

 

[Zarxrax]

KNOW YOUR SUBJECT.
If you are just regurgitating some fact that you had to learn, then its really difficult. If you are talking about something that you know like the back of your hand, then its much, MUCH easier.

I am a horrible public speaker, and have always had issues with it.
But one day, I decided to give a talk at a convention, on a topic that I knew really well. I did this to sort of face my fear and hopefully improve at public speaking. Despite being scared to death, I sat there and talked for an hour straight, with no problems at all, just because I knew what I was talking about.

Have a note card with your key points. so you can glance at it and make sure you covered everything.
Don't write down your whole speech. Remember the key points you need to talk about, and just talk about them in your own words. Don't try to script it.

 

[Escher]

Go really damn slow. Most people when they're speaking publicly go way too fast and get out of breath. Going too fast also makes you sound high pitched and whiny, and makes you look obviously under-confident.

If you're reading from a script, put a bunch of commas all over the place, they'll force you to slow down, and make sure at every full stop/period you pause for a second or so.

Make your family sit on a couch and present it to them even if they hate it and are distracted. Most likely the people in your class will not be listening and will just be thinking about something else.

I've done a bunch of public speaking stuff for various things and that kind of advice is the most common and is easy to implement

 

[Raffael]

(edit: ninja'd by escher, though i agree with him as well)

i agree with everything above.

some additional things which have always helped me (and i have held speeches in front of 600+ people in university):
- try to imagine the people in front of you in really silly underwear, don't imagine them being naked because that might be a tad too gross / arousing
- be aware that only a third, maybe max. half of your audience in class is actually listening to you
- always focus on one peculiar person which looks like he/she is actually listening, switch your focus every 3-5 sentences
- if you lose track and can't remember your next key point: don't panic. take a deep breath, look at your note card and continue
- PRACTICE your speech beforehand. tell it to your mom, your siblings, friends, whoever is available atm. (you probably will want to skip the silly unedrwear trick here)
- practice on your plush toys.over and over and over again.they love you, they won't judge you, they're cute and forgiving
- don't rush through it, just stay calm and relaxed

hope this helped, good luck.

 

[toastman]

Go slow and look ahead.

(No, seriously).

PRACTICE. Your whole speech, out loud, 4-5 times. Doesn't need to be in front of an audience. But if you have access to the *room* where you'll be performing, practice there.

You'll do fine. You may *feel* like you're doing a horrible job and making mistakes... but you're not. No-body in the audience is going to notice whatever crazyness is going on inside your head.

But seriously. PRACTICE. A lot.

(Also, jig-aloo).

 

[Louie]

All of the advice so far is very sound, except maybe for the underwear bit.

You want to have your whole speech down pat. Know it forwards and back. Then on your note cards just have the topics down almost like the chapters in a book (plus the sections of the chapter like some books do).

Practice over and over, and time yourself. Realize that if you go through it and it is 4 minutes, that'll most likely translate to about 3 minutes in class. When you are nervous you will go faster. Then practice in front of your family. You'll see that I was right when it's 3.5 mins max in front of them. And the most important thing is that you have them tell you where you went wrong and to be brutally honest. Though if they can offer some positive criticism as well that would be kind of them.

This may seem really annoying but you'll get up there and be so glad that you went through the trouble because you'll feel absurdly comfortable compared to the unprepared. Also, ask your teacher if you can go first or second. You'll get brownie points and you'll save yourself the build-up adrenaline that results from constantly wondering you are "next."

 

[collinbxyz]

I don't have much to day since everyone above covered most of it, but one thing, is take a deep breath before starting, and go slowly (like ^ they said). I recently (last 2 weeks) had to do a few minute speech in front of my class for science, and I was the first person on the 'team'* to do it. I was pretty nervous with it, but just got it over with. I don't think most of the kids really care about the speech, so don't worry about them too much.

OT: Louie, I see that you are knew (0 posts), so I would suggest making an introduction thread. I'm from PA also

*In my middle school, there are three teams for my grade, where you can basically on be in the same classes as other kids in your team. Sorry if this was obvious (I really don't know), or if it wasn't explained well enough. tl;dr, my team has over 100 kids, and I was the first to speak for this 'project' this year.

 

[Weston]

Practice in front of a camera and watch yourself.
Watch your entire body.

Also, remember that your opponent will probably be just as nervous as you are.
It's very normal to have fear of public speaking.

 

[Mal]

Go slow. I can't stress this enough. GO SLOOOOOOWWWWWWWW! And before you do the speech take 3 big deep breaths, I do it to calm any of my nerves.