Welcome to the January Issue of Speaking-Out-Loud write-out-loud.com's monthly E-zine to help you effectively 'talk your walk'.

If this E-zine speaks to you, then quite likely it will talk sense to your friends, family or work mates too. Please pass it along.

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Remember, if you have any questions you're most welcome to ask them through my contact form. I enjoy hearing from my readers and will respond as soon as I am able.

Happy speaking,

Susan

In this Issue

If you don't have time to read the whole ezine, click on the topic that interests you. This month you will find:

• Susan's Spiel

• How to Memorize a Speech

• Storytelling in Speeches

• Pronunciation Practice

Susan's Spiel

How to Memorize a Speech
This month's Article lets us in on a memory trick that will allow us to give a speech with either no, or minimal, notes.

Storytelling in Speeches reminds us that we all love a good story, no matter how old we are.
As Muriel Rukeyser says "The universe is made of stories, not atoms."

Pronunciation Practice
Yes, more on pronunciation! This month I feature a poem that is a mouthful even for a native speaker like me. It's Dutch writer Gerard Nolst Trenité's poem The Chaos highlighting the complex irregularities of English spelling and pronunciation.

I am always looking for ways to improve the site. If you see any errors or would like to contribute in any way, please accept this invitation to contact me through my About Me page.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy this month's Speaking-Out-Loud!

Happy New Year, happy speaking, and may all your public speaking goals come to fruition,

Susan

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How to Memorize a Speech

Do you yearn to be one of those people who speak without the aid of notes?
Their speech seems to come effortlessly from mind to mouth without a falter from beginning to end.

How do they do this?
Do they learn the entire speech by rote through repeating it a zillion times so it is etched into their brains or is there some other trick?

John Deans, a very experienced public speaker and teacher, tells us that the magic can be achieved through a mnemonic, or memory aid.

He advocates the use of acronyms to remember what you want to say. An acronym uses the first letter of a series of words to avoid having to repeat the whole sequence. Commonplace examples are USA standing for the United States of America or asap, which is an abbreviation of the phrase, as soon as possible.

In his article exclusively for write-out-loud.com readers John outlines how to use and choose an acronym as a memory aid.

To see how this could work for you click how to memorize a speech. You'll find two examples accompanied by full explanations and speech notes.If you decide to try it, let us in on how it worked out for you. We'd love to know. Share your experience through the form here.

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Storytelling in Speeches

Do you remember storytelling from your childhood? I do. Some stories are as clear in my mind as if it were yesterday. I can remember who was telling the story, what it was about, what the actual words were and most of all how I felt listening to it. And that's the power of good storytelling. It lives on in the minds of the listener often for years and years.

No matter how old we are we can still be captivated by a story told well. That's why including stories as part of any speech you write will enhance it.

Obviously there are some guidelines to follow. It's not just any story you tell or of any length. And there are specific ways to improve your storytelling.

1. Always begin with your audience. You need to know who they are, what their likes and dislikes are, to get an idea of what you can and can't tell them. The treatment or how you tell your story will vary between audiences, just as humor does. What is funny to one group may not be to another. It is safer to know rather than guess and risk silence.
2. Always fit your story to your theme or topic. Storytelling without purpose will go down like the proverbial lead balloon. Tell stories that provide examples for the points you are making.
3. Make your storytelling personal. The audience will love you for it. Use your own experiences to poke a little fun at yourself. Exposing your fears, habits, or misunderstandings lets the audience identify with you. You stop being the remote expert and become one of them.

Click the link for more on including storytelling in your speeches. You'll find tips to hone your storytelling, an example from yours truly, and ongoing links to pages on the best way to introduce or set up your story for inclusion in your speech.

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Pronunciation Practice

Though, thorough, cough
Look carefully at these 3 words. They all end with the same letter combination 'ough'. Therefore they should sound similar when they're said out loud, shouldn't they? Perhaps. But they don't. Instead they are pronounced differently.

Why? Mostly it's because the English language is a scavenger, and has grown through grabbing words it wants from any source for centuries. The result can be agony and not just for non-native speakers. There are so many irregularities of spelling and pronunciation defying tidy rules.

Here's a poem aptly called The Chaos that illustrates why we get ourselves so confused. It was written by Dutchman G. Nolst Trenité and contains around 800 potential pronunciation challenges.

Have a go at saying the first two verses out loud. If you want more you can find the full text of the poem here on Wikipedia and a recording with scrolling text read by a Canadian.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

And because I couldn't resist the challenge, I had a go too. You can hear my attempt here. It's not perfect and the recording is not that great but it was fun to do! Be warned: I am a New Zealander and the way I say certain words may sound odd in your ears!

PS. If you need help with spoken English check out these pages: proper pronunciation and diction exercises. Both have on going links to pages on similar themes.

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Thank you for reading the January Issue of Speaking-Out-Loud. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please feel free to contact me with any questions through the form at the foot of the Speaking Out Loud Page. I love hearing from my readers!

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Until next time,
Happy speaking,

Susan

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