Brandon Learning Centre: British Education - process, preparation and practicalities

Tonight is the Brandon Learning Centre Annual Charity Show. We have more than ninety students performing in both English and French. Last minute advice: Make sure that you know where the venue is so you aren't rushing. It is the Duke of Windsor Social Services Building at 15 Hennessy Road. Doors open at 6.45 pm. Wear something which is comfortable for you! Warm up your voice. Take three deep breaths. On the fourth breath, say "ah" as you exhale. Repeat for "ee" and "oh" Look over your words again. Have fun! This is a wonderful opportunity for you to speak in public in front of a crowd of admiring parents and to raise money for Helping Hand's elderly. See you at the show!

You have written the perfect speech; blending humour, sincerity and hard fact, there is something for everyone. Now how can you avoid undermining all your hard work with a lacklustre presentation? My next few posts will focus on delivery and are a supplement to a course I am currently teaching at PolyU to a wonderful group of engaged and dedicated students. Step one: read through your speech outloud, record yourself at this point. Step two: listen to the recording whilst scanning your speech, notice where you stop and pause for breath. Do your pauses mean that key phrases are lost? Step three: mark your copy with to indicate phrases. You will end up with something that looks like this: We are all aware of how the weather affects our moods/ but do we also think about the effect on our animals?/ Do we consider how miserable,/ how uncomfortable/ or how confused they may feel when they first encouter snow? / By marking your phrasing, you break up the speech into manageable pieces

This week, we have over 200 of our students taking the English Speaking Board public speaking assessments. Each students will have to make a presentation, share a favourite book and poem and interact as part of a listening group. I know that all our students are well prepared but here are some last minute ideas which apply to any presentation you make. Cue cards: If you are using cue cards, make sure that they only contain key words so you aren't tempted to read. Number your cue cards; there is nothing worse than dropping them just before your speech. Visual aids: If you are using PowerPoint, try to incorporate pictures rather than words. Use your visual aids to remind you of your main points. Choose images/graphs which add more information or insight to your points. Audience interaction: Try to scan your audience as you speak. Judge the area you have to work with and consider moving around to emphasise your key points. Relax and smile; audiences will engage

Relying on written aide-memoires can be hazardous. I started trying this technique after dropping my notes as I walked on to the stage at a conference... Divide your speech into sections. As you rehearse each section, choose either a different part of the room or of your body to associate it with. I normally use my fingers. Typically, your speech will have an introduction, three main points and a conclusion and, even with my maths skills I can manage to count to five. If you get access to your room before the presentation, use the same technique but associate with different parts of the room. This technique takes some practice and won't replace key cards but it will mean that you have a back up plan and won't be reduce to scrabbling around on the floor for your pages as the audience enjoys the spectacle!

The Reassurance - Thom Gunn About ten days or so After we saw you dead You came back in a dream. I'm all right now you said. And it was you, although You were fleshed out again: You hugged us all round then, And gave your welcoming beam. How like you to be kind, Seeking to reassure. And, yes, how like my mind To make itself secure.

If you are a musician, you play scales to warm up you fingers before playing. If you are a sportsman, you stretch before the vital match. If you are an artist, you sharpen your pencils before beginning your masterpiece. So why on earth would you begin a speech before preparing your voice? Find a quiet place and do the following. Step one: shake all the stress out of your body. Don't be shy; as my mother would say as she forced us to try on clothes in Dunne's Stores, "who is going to be looking at you?" Step two: breathe deeply, releasing your stress. Breathe in to the count of five, out to the count os six. Step three: hum to yourself to warm up your mouth and chant to open up your vocal chords. Put your heart into it! There are many more exercises you can do prepares yourself but the key is this; no one can see you and this is your chance to prepare the only instrument you will be using for your speech... your voice. And to finish; thank you to all my stu

According to the personals columns, the majority of us have a GSOH (Good sense of humour) In contrast, I have yet to hear anyone saying that they are a Good Public Speaker! In this update, I would like to try to provide a quick check list for you to identify areas which may need work and will be providing some ideas to help in the near future. The voice: You will need: a voice recorder, a newspaper Put the voice recorder in a place where it will pick up your voice but not so close to you that you do not need to project. Record yourself reading any article from the paper as though you are reading to an audience. When you play back the piece, you are listening for: 1: Words which are indistinct (is there a pattern; are they at the end of sentences? Do they include the same letter combinations? 2: Changes in volume; are they logical? 3: Pace; do you rush? 4: Tone of voice; would you want to listen to yourself? Based on your self-diagnosis, you will have a better idea of

Today, I had the most inspiring and delightful morning. I adjudicated a Speech Festival; one hundred and forty five year olds all reading short poems! For some people, this scenario may be their idea of hell. For me, it is a vision of the potential of our Hong Kong students. To stand on a stage at the age of four requires both courage on the part of the child and support on the part of their parents. The children this morning had both in abundance. The Festival (第四屆全港學生公開朗誦比賽)I am involved in is organised by the Speech and Music Recital Foundation who believe in encouraging and nurturing students. Of course, there are winners but every participant gets a medal and a certificate of encourgement (including the little girl who recited the title and name of the author five times, bowed and fled the stage!) So how do you prepare your children to take this first brave step? The Brandon Learning Centre way is simple: 1: Learn and understand the poem 2: Practice makes perfect; ensure

Every speech has the potential for disaster; you lose your train of thought, get distracted or (God forbid) fall off the platform. Last week during my annual Cantonese speech opening the Helping Hand Cookie Day, I managed to commit the first two sins but not, fortunately, the third. What do you do when you are standing on a stage in front of an audience and all goes wrong? Option one is to turn and run off the stage with the result that, for the rest of your days, you will remember the moment and cringe. Option two is to make the best of it, catch your breath, aplogise to the audience and carry on. This is the option I chose. Of course I was mortified but I did manage to pick up, apologised for my rotten pronounciation and rounded off my speech with a small shred of dignity intact. Later, I spoke to someone who had been in my audience and hadn't realised that anything had gone wrong. In an ideal world, every speech would be perfect. In the world we live in, this may not b

Christmas presents and public speaking skills aren't an obvious combination but with a bit of creativity, the link can be made! For your children: encourage "show and tell" by asking children to introduce their new presents to family members. Use questions to develop a framework and help them to expand on the information they are giving. This is a great way to get your children making presentations because their enthusiasm over-rides any fear. For adults: try a "present debate" in which everyone has to give a one minute speech arguing why they have received the ultimate present. After each round, vote for the most popular gift based on the persuasive speech (not your own preferences!) Winner avoids the washing up. Effective public speaking begins with a basic interest in the subject and a desire to communicate. Both of these criteria are answered as you unwrap a fabulous Christmas present and can't wait to tell everyone about it! Happy Christmas...

The art of public speaking was developed by the Ancient Greeks. Speeches were not approached casually but carefully crafted paying strict attention to the rules of rhetoric. Aristotle dedicated an entire book to the topic, imaginatively entitled "Rhetoric." We are so lazy these days that the thought of trawling through classical literature to find inspiration fills most of us with dread. So much easier to buy one of those fabulous airport books with catchy titles promising instant public speaking skills in ten easy lessons, right? Wrong. Why waste your time on pale imitations when you can go direct to the source? I taught presentation skills to a class of fifteen year olds who not only grasped Aristotle's concepts immediately but also identified examples they had encountered. Bear in mind that this was a class of Cantonese speakers who were operating in English. Impressive. Aristotle on credibility: "Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when

You are more likely to see starlight over Hong Kong than meet to a natural public speaker.. When we try to see the stars, we are competing with light from buildings, cars and even fireworks. When you try to present, you are competing with years of fear, the belief that you are not really a presenter and even against people you perceive to be "good speakers" So what do you do? If you want to see the stars, you need to block out other light sources. If you want to be a good public speaker, you need to silence the distractions. So to tackle them in turn... 1: The fear. Read back in this blog to find ways of removing the physical effects of nerves. 2: not really a presenter? Record your speech, play it back,listen to it critically and work on the areas you aren't happy with. Play it again, not bad eh? Remember that feeling. 3: Good speakers? Learn from them. You don't leave the house every day expecting a battle do you? You can copy ideas, listen to techniques and even a

You are wearing a suit you aren't used to, sitting in a room you've never seen before, being asked personal questions by someone you have never seen in your life. yes indeed, it is.... the interview! How can you make the process less painful? Start with adjusting your worldview. Interviewers aren't trying to weed out the people who don't make the grade; they are trying to find the candidates who excel. School interviews are the beginning of the fun. Having been told by parents that you shouldn't talk about yourself all the time, you find yourself being told to do just that! How can parents help their child adapt? One way is to help them to identify their strengths both inside and outside school. Talk to them about what makes them special, University interviews can be a moment of sheer panic. Calm down. Re-read your personal statement or application essays and remind yourself of why the University has chosen to see you (because you sparkle!) I have interviewed candid

"You know, when I watch speakers like Obama, I realise that I will never be a good public speaker" sighed one of my dinner companion last night. "Nor me" agreed the lawyer opposite him. "Wait" I chipped in " President Obama has a whole team of scriptwriters working for him. They script, direct and coach him in the best way to deliver his speeches. It is like comparing a family photo to an air brushed portrait in a magazine. We can use the professional version for inspiration but reality is never as polished unless of course you have your own team hidden in the back office or weeks to devote to your presentation!" Use the great speakers for ideas and tips on delivery but please don't compare yourself negatively to them. Every speaker has individual talents and your may find that you become more confident if, rather than thinking you are walking in the shadow of other presenterss, you focus on your strengths and on developing your own unique st

In any one day, we make a thousand observations about other people. Listen to a review of your mental tapes at the end of the day and you'll be amazed..."That was great the way he let the old lady get on the bus first...terrible shoes she is wearing... Interesting idea he just had..." All of these observations lead to snap judgements about character, moral choices or the urban tribe we think someone belongs to. The question is; once we have made the judgement, can it change? Imagine if the man who let the old lady get on the bus first pushes you out of the way to get to a seat? Feeling differently about him now? It is a well worn piece of received wisdom that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Maybe so but we do get the chance to make subsequent impressions. How does this apply to public speaking? One of the main fears I have heard from students is that they somehow mess up their presentation and lose the audience. It is possible that you forget you

As children, we perceive that the world revolves around us. As teenagers, we worry that the world is against us. As adults, it is difficult to shake off these formative ideas. If you are in a train with people speaking a foreign language, do you assume that at least some of them are talking about you? Most of us do. Once we learn the language, we learn that people talk about everyday matters. In Hong Kong this is; what to eat, what has been eaten and what should be eaten! When it comes to public speaking, a common fear people mention is that they feel that the audience is staring at them, willing them to fail or waiting for them to say something foolish. Accurate? Next time you are in a meeting or listening to a speaker, pause and analyse your thoughts. I am willing to take a wild guess that only 30% of your attention is dedicated to the speaker. The rest will be on your everyday concerns or plans you want to get on with as soon as the meeting has finished. Your challenge as a speaker