Tuesday 31 December 2013

Public Speaking in the Twenty-First Century

Public Speaking in the Twenty-First Century

Public speaking is the process of designing and delivering a message to an audience. Effective public speaking involves understanding your audience and speaking goals, choosing elements for the speech that will engage your audience with your topic, and delivering your message skillfully. Good public speakers understand that they must plan, organize, and revise their material in order to develop an effective speech.


Public speaking is a process, an act and an art of making a speech before an audience.

“The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives.”                                      -    Anthony Robbins


According to national surveys and research results, fear of public speaking(or 'glossophobia') ranks among the top dreads, surpassing even fear of death itself.

However, feeling some nervousness before giving a speech is natural and healthy.

1.     Know your material. Pick a topic you are interested in. Know more about it than you include in your speech. Use humor, personal stories and conversational language – that way you won’t easily forget what to say.
Subject and materials tremendously influence each other.

2.     Practice. Practice. Practice! Rehearse out loud with all equipment you plan on using. Revise as necessary. Work to control filler words; Practice, pause and breathe. Practice with a timer and allow time for the unexpected.
“Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.”
-        Vince Lombardi
3. Know the audience. Greet some of the audience members as they arrive. It’s easier to speak to a group of friends than to strangers.
4. Know the room. Arrive early, walk around the speaking area and practice using the microphone and any visual aids.
5. Relax. Begin by addressing the audience. It buys you time and calms your nerves. Pause, smile and count to three before saying anything. ("One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand. Pause. Begin.) Transform nervous energy into enthusiasm.
Washington Irving once introduced Charles Dickens at a dinner given in the
latter's honor. In the middle of his speech Irving hesitated, became embarrassed,
and sat down awkwardly. Turning to a friend beside him he remarked, "There, I
told you I would fail, and I did."
If you believe you will fail, there is no hope for you. You will.
Do not make haste to begin--haste shows lack of control.

6. Visualize yourself giving your speech. Imagine yourself speaking, your voice loud, clear and confident. Visualize the audience clapping – it will boost your confidence. Remember the only way to acquire it is--to acquire it.
"Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice."

7. Realize that people want you to succeed. Audiences want you to be interesting, stimulating, informative and entertaining. They’re rooting for you.


8. Don’t apologize for any nervousness or problem – the audience probably never noticed it.

9. Concentrate on the message – not the medium. Focus your attention away from your own anxieties and concentrate on your message and your audience.

10. Gain experience. Mainly, your speech should represent you — as an authority and as a person. Experience builds confidence, which is the key to effective speaking.
Experience, then, is not only the best teacher, but the first and the last.

Practise, practise, PRACTISE in speaking before an audience will tend to remove all fear of audiences, just as practise in swimming will lead to confidence and facility in the water. You must learn to speak by speaking.

Aloha
Gazal Pasnani

Source In Aid :

Monday 30 December 2013

Friday 27 December 2013

LISTENING TIPS



DO
 Eliminate distractions and make eye contact
 with the speaker.

 Nod or use other cues to show you’re
 listening.

 Show empathy.

 Listen objectively while the person is
 speaking.

 Follow the speaker’s lead regarding how
much they wish to reveal.

 Restate the speaker’s points, if needed, to
make sure you understood correctly.

 Ask questions to prompt the speaker to think
about possible alternatives.

 Encourage the speaker and be optimistic.

 Ensure confidentiality.




DON'T
 Stare so intently that you make the speaker
uncomfortable.

 Interrupt or change the subject.

 Share your own related stories unless you’re
asked.

 Plan your own response while they are
speaking and fail to hear everything.

 Pry, or try to get the speaker to divulge things
that are too personal.

 Continuously repeat the speaker word-for-word.

 Offer your own opinions, unless you have
expertise that will help provide a solution.

 Be unrealistic or offer false enthusiasm.

 Repeat to anyone what you were told in
secrecy.



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-DEEPALI AGRAVAT 

 



 



Interesting Facts About English
1.     The most common letter in English is "e".
2.     The most common vowel in English is "e", followed by "a".
3.     The most common consonant in English is "r", followed by "t".
4.     Every syllable in English must have a vowel (sound). Not all syllables have consonants.
5.     Only two English words in current use end in "-gry". They are "angry" and "hungry".
6.     The word "bookkeeper" (along with its associate "bookkeeping") is the only unhyphenated English word with three consecutive double letters. Other such words, like "sweet-toothed", require a hyphen to be readily readable.
7.     The word "triskaidekaphobia" means "extreme fear of the number 13". This superstition is related to "paraskevidekatriaphobia", which means "fear of Friday the 13th".
8.     More English words begin with the letter "s" than with any other letter.
9.     A preposition is always followed by a noun (ie noun, proper noun, pronoun, noun group, gerund).
10.   The word "uncopyrightable" is the longest English word in normal use that contains no letter more than once.
11.   A sentence that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet is called a "pangram".
12.   The following sentence contains all 26 letters of the alphabet: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." This sentence is often used to test typewriters or keyboards.
13.   The only word in English that ends with the letters "-mt" is "dreamt" (which is a variant spelling of "dreamed") - as well of course as "undreamt" :)
14.   A word formed by joining together parts of existing words is called a "blend" (or, less commonly, a "portmanteau word"). Many new words enter the English language in this way. Examples are "brunch" (breakfast + lunch); "motel" (motorcar + hotel); and "guesstimate" (guess + estimate). Note that blends are not the same as compounds or compound nouns, which form when two whole words join together, for example: website, blackboard, darkroom.
15.   The word "alphabet" comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha, bÄ“ta.
16.   The dot over the letter "i" and the letter "j" is called a "superscript dot".
17.   In normal usage, the # symbol has several names, for example: hash, pound sign, number sign.
18.   In English, the @ symbol is usually called "the at sign" or "the at symbol".
19.   If we place a comma before the word "and" at the end of a list, this is known as an "Oxfordcomma" or a "serial comma". For example: "I drink coffee, tea, and wine."
20.   Some words exist only in plural form, for example: glasses (spectacles), binoculars, scissors, shears, tongs, gallows, trousers, jeans, pants, pyjamas (but note that clothing words often become singular when we use them as modifiers, as in "trouser pocket").
21.   The shortest complete sentence in English is the following. "I am."
22.   The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat" meaning "the king is helpless".
23.   We pronounce the combination "ough" in 9 different ways, as in the following sentence which contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

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24.   The longest English word without a true vowel (a, e, i, o or u) is "rhythm".
25.   The only planet not named after a god is our own, Earth. The others are, in order from the Sun, Mercury, Venus, [Earth,] Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
26.   There are only 4 English words in common use ending in "-dous": hazardous, horrendous, stupendous, and tremendous.
27.   We can find 10 words in the 7-letter word "therein" without rearranging any of its letters: the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.
28.   The following sentence contains 7 identical words in a row and still makes sense. "It is true for allthat that that that that that that refers to is not the same that that that that refers to." (= It is true for all that, that that "that" which that "that" refers to is not the same "that" which that "that" refers to.)
It
is
true
for
all
that
that
that
that
that
that
that





pronoun
conjunction
determiner
noun
relative pronoun
determiner
noun







(adjective)
"that"
which
(adjective)
"that"
29.    
refers
to
is
not
the
same
that
that
that
that
refers
to.






noun
relative pronoun
determiner
noun








"that"
which
(adjective)
"that"


30.  
A sentence with a similar pattern, which may help to unravel the above, is:
It is true, despite everything you say, that this word which this word refers to is not the same word which this word refers to.
Or, if you insist on being really correct:
It is true, despite everything you say, that this word to which this word refers is not the same word to which this word refers.