Quick and Easy Effective Tips for Speaking Rate
or: How to Pace your Words for Maximum Effectiveness
Why should you consider Quick and Easy Effective Tips for Speaking Rate?
If you've ever been called a motor-mouth, you'll know it's because the words rocket out of your mouth.That may be fun and exciting to listen to for a while but too much speed is dangerous. It can kill your speech. How? The people listening get tired. You may be asking them to work too hard. When your speech stops being stimulating and starts being uncomfortable, ears switch off.
And exactly the same thing happens at the other end of the spectrum. Slow word-by-very-slow-word turns ears off just as fast.
Now people are waiting-and-waiting for you to get on with it and your lack of speed causes them to lose interest.
For the motor-mouths reading this consider:
- Your listeners may interpret your haste as saying: 'I haven't got time for you.'
- Or they may think you're telling them: 'I want this speech over and done with. It's a chore rather than a pleasure.
I'll do it as fast as I can to be shot of it.
- Or they might think your unspoken message is: 'If you can't keep up with me and understand, it's you rather me with
the problem. If you were more intelligent or focused you wouldn't have any difficulty.
- Or perhaps they're receiving: 'I'm feeling so anxious about speaking to you. I'm afraid you won't like or be
interested in what I've got to say, or that I'll stuff it up so I'll say it as fast as possible and sit down.
(This is a common first-time or novice speaker reaction. It afflicts all sorts of people: students who have to give a presentation, new teachers, actors...The cure is to acknowledge your fear,deal with it appropriately and keep on speaking. If you need help with 'fast-through-fear' you'll find Handy Tips here)
For the habitually slow speakers consider:
- Your careful word by word placement may insult your listeners. It may make them feel you think they're so dull or
silly they will not be able to grasp your content if you go any faster.
- Your listeners may think you are boring. Slow is often equated with lack of passion so they might decide you are not
particularly interested in either them or your topic.
- The audience might feel you don't really know what you are talking about. You have to go slowly because you are searching
for each new word or idea.
The answer to the fast-slow problem is not the middle ground. Rather it is to vary our speaking rate in
direct response to our audience's and our content's need.
Picture in your mind the the layout of your speech. You'll have an introduction, followed by a series of main ideas
with supporting examples or illustrations. To finish there'll be a conclusion. Now think of the thread (theme, main idea)
linking it altogether. It is similar to a road. You are taking your audience on a journey. Your speech is the vehicle
carrying them along and your mouth is the driver.
As the driver you make choices. You can whirl them through so fast the scenery blurs. While you're busy negotiating a series of complicated hair pin bends at full throttle, they're gazing out out the back window trying to work out what they've missed and where they are. One by one your listeners get dizzy. Then they close off their ears and sit quietly waiting for the ride
to stop.
Or by contrast you can proceed so cautiously your passengers want to get out and walk.
If you were a responsive driver you would be continually adjusting your speed to meet the road conditions and the needs of your passengers.There would be places to slow and perhaps even stop for the audience to catch their breath. There would also be places where a quick burst of acceleration would give an exciting thrill.
Practice with Quick Easy and Effective Tips for Speaking Rate to get your mix of fast-slow just right.
Quick Easy and Effective Tips for Speaking Rate
Generally a FASTER speaking speed signals urgency, excitement, passion or raw emotion. It can lead the audience to expect something thrilling is going to occur. They hold their breaths and go for the ride with you.
In contrast a SLOWER speaking rate signals importance, seriousness, or significant ideas. It says: 'LISTEN UP! YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS.' A new concept or new and perhaps, complex sequential information may need to be delivered slowly so the audience has time to grasp all of the ideas and their consequences before moving on. 'Slow' is also useful for summarizing material.
The combination of slow, fast, slow, medium speed etc. adds interest to your speech making it easier to listen to.
Practice:
- Read or recite part of a text you know and love quickly. If you can record yourself, do so. If not, listen and
note the effect it has on you. If you've recorded yourself, play it back. Ask yourself where was the speed effective? Where
was it detrimental? Mark those places on your script.
(Use a highlighter: red for fast, blue for go slower) Read again
incorporating your changes.
Stuck for ideas on what to choose to work with? Try passages from the Bible or the text from a famous speech you know well. If you don't have copies, you can find them easily through a quick search on the
net.
- Read a children's story silently several times to familiarise yourself with the flow. Go through it again noting
which passages would suit taking more quickly and which should be slower. Read aloud making those changes and listen
carefully.
- Pick an information loaded report from a newpaper or magazine. Go through it to familiarise yourself with the flow of material and then read aloud. Make a note of which passages need careful or slow reading and which can be taken at a faster rate. Re-read aloud until you feel you have the mix of speeds right. As an extension exercise read the report as if
you were reading for an audience who knew nothing about the subject. Note what changes you made and why.
- Time yourself reading or saying your speech at your normal speaking rate. Note the time down. Now go
through again having marked passages for slower or faster treatment. Note the new time.
- Practice with a partner. Go through any of the exercises above. Explain what you doing and ask them to listen for effectiveness. Get them to note examples where you did well and where you needed to alter your rate and why.
- Listen to speakers you admire.They could be radio presenters, preachers...anybody accustomed to speaking in
public. Note the different rates of speech they use over the course of their presentation and the effectiveness of them.
(Try to listen to a variety so you have a broad range to draw inspiration from.) Take elements of their rate changes and
experiment with them for yourself.
And lastly, give yourself a pat on the back. Changing speaking rate is challenging. The habitual speed of words leaving our mouths is deeply ingrained. As children we are very effective sponges. We soak up everything around us, including the speech rates used by our significant adults. What was their normal speech speed becomes ours. It feels natural,
comfortable and right! Altering rate is not impossible but it does require awareness, effort and PRACTICE!
Giving yourself a flexible Speech Rate is only PART of the skill set used by a successful speaker. You can put more in your tool box.
Find out why silence speaks so eloquently and learn how to use it.
Remember the picture of your mouth as the driver? When your tongue is high revving it's accelerating away. When you're stuck in first gear, it's crawling forward one little word at a time. Now you've got control over rate, it's time to turn your attention to the brakes. Skilled use of the brakes are the key to effective silence. Get Power in your Pause here!
PS. Did you know the average 'natural' (ordinary conversational speech) speaking rate ranges between approximately 130-200 words per minute? Speaking rate has regional as well as national variations. Listen to what is regarded as 'normal' to make any adjustments needed before you speak in public.
Return to the Top of the Page
Finished Quick and Easy Effective Tips for Speaking Rate? Return to Essential Tips for more.
Ready for Quick Easy Effective Tips for Using Pauses? They're here.
Have you got control over what your bodylanguage is saying? Get it here.
Return to Home Page
Click for a Complete Sitemap
|
