Find your voice

  • 30 minutes

Presenting and delivering training with your peers can often be nerve-racking, even if you're an experienced teacher and are used to 'being on stage' regularly.

In this video Zia Hassan (@teachersystems) takes you through some top tips to develop public-speaking skills.

Top tips for public speaking

  • If you're nervous, practice mindfulness techniques to help manage your 'internal narrator.'
  • Annunciate every word, while speaking at your normal pace. This helps to keep from accelerating the pace of your training.
  • Rehearse in front of an empty room. Record it and then watch it back, so you can identify where you can improve. Then rehearse with a test audience and ask them to be your critical friend. Ask them when they were most engaged and when you may have lost them.
  • Use the Presenter Coach to help with pitch, tone, and inclusivity.
  • Be conscious when adrenalin is causing you to accelerate how you're speaking. Remind yourself to slow down.
  • Keep slides simple, visual, and with a small amount of text. Avoid sentences and paragraphs.
  • Vary the pitch and speed of your voice by being curious and passionate about your topic. Develop the emotional connection with what you're speaking about and your voice will naturally vary in pitch and speed to match your enthusiasm.
  • Use curiosity triggers to engage the attention of your audience.
  • Before you present, talk to other people before your training. Develop and build a rapport with your audience.
  • Practice in the shower to become more articulate!
  • Avoid using filler words by replacing the filler with silence. The pauses will help you and will help the audience to digest what you're saying.
  • Get comfortable with your presenting environment. If a problem happens in your environment, be open to owning it and try playing about with it.
  • If you make a mistake, do something to recover from it and ensure you rebalance the energy.
  • Most importantly—figure out what will unlock the topic for your audience members. Make it memorable by making it real for them.

Photo of a presenter at a laptop in front of a screen.