Active and successful students often need to hold public speeches in front of different audiences.
NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) tries to teach people to watch, understand, and influence themselves and others as effectively as experienced psychotherapists and communication experts do. So, great attention is paid to the right sequence of words in a phrase. It is thought that you can convince a person, influence his or her decision, or make a good impression if you do everything right.
I wish I knew more about it at those time when I was a college student and needed to do my project assignments so persuasively that my discerning professor believed I hadn’t copied and pasted the text from another source.
NLP can be used in many areas, such as psychology, negotiations, advertising, politics. But a curious thing is that it can be used for public speeches too. Of course, NLP is controversial and unaccepted by the academic community. Still, some of its techniques can be really effective for orators. Below you will discover some tips.
-
Tip #1: One Minute Stories
It would be great to start your speech with:
- A story that happened to you;
- A story about an article you have read;
- Statistics;
- A story based on a quote;
It is important to tell a story in a way that can cause emotional feedback from your listeners. You need to make your message “sensual”, which means using words relating to five sense organs: eyes, ears, tongue, nose and skin.
Connect them inside the story as if it happened to each person in the audience. Unite them with common feelings.
-
Tip #2: Use Words Defining Human Senses
This tip expands and fulfills the previous one.
In NLP these words are used intentionally to cause a sensual experience.
For Instance:
- Ears: hear, listen to, melody, harmony, bell tolling, sounds like;
- Eyes: watch, look, see, beautiful, bright, clear;
- Skin: feel, rough, soft, plain;
- Tongue and nose: smells, sweet, etc.
-
Tip #3: Drop an Anchor
Anchors create a “stimuli – reaction” connection.
You can “set” a scene by using positive words on one side of it, and negative words on the other one.
As soon as you realize you can drop an anchor, move to the “positive” side to make the audience agree with your opinion.
-
Tip #4: Use Positive and Negative Gestures
Imagine you are pushing things away when speaking about something negative and make pulling moves when the info is positive.
-
Tip #5: Use Gestures to Involve the Audience
Use gestures to highlight something essential in your speech. Pleasant story moments should be supported with smooth moves. It works at a deep subconscious level of people’s minds and can attract listeners and viewers.
-
Tip #6: Remember That There Are Three Types of Perception
Your audience may have visual, audial, or kinesthetic perception. Make sure that you present your speech not only by speaking. Show photos or graphs. Let people touch objects (Jobs used to do that when presented his first iPhone) or do certain tasks on the stage.
-
Tip #7: Concentrate on How Inspiring Your Speech Will Be, Not on Its Content
Many orators focus on the content in their speeches. You should focus on HOW exactly you want to present your message.
-
Tip #8: Use Words the Most of Audience Should Agree With
Vague words let the audience agree with you, as they have not that much certainty, so there is nothing to argue with. For instance, everyone can agree that there is the need to improve “education”, feel “positive emotions”, reach “success”, and increase “motivation”.
This is the case when you speak about transport in general, not about a certain car. Such words do not answer directly to questions like: “What’s happening?”, “Who is guilty?” and “What to do?”
You can also replace verbs (actions) with abstract nouns (something inactive). They call this trick a “nominalization”. It is a very useful instrument for public speeches.
-
Tip #9: Use Specific Words
Of course, you may become known as a demagogic person and a trickster if you use only vague words. They are uncertain and ambiguous. This means they automatically hypnotize your listeners. So, it is required to use something specific in your speech as well.
Who exactly? What exactly? How exactly? These are the questions both you and your audience need to answer. They keep you and the listeners or viewers conscious.
-
Tip #10: Know Emotions Evoked by You
In the process of communication people always evoke certain emotions, no matter if they want them to appear or not. It is important to know what exactly those emotions are.
Curiosity is a good emotional state any speaker has to dare to call in the minds of listeners. It makes the audience be involved in cooperation and in the goal to learn more. Use body language, pitch of your voice, and facial expressions to achieve that.
If you need help with composing a decent speech, experienced speech writers from WeDohomework.net will provide you with a perfect sample in no time!