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Talking in front of people

isitme said:
i think vanilla stuff like food and cities would be more sensible than trolling my students :D:D
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Yep, I guess talking about food and cities is a better bet than talking about stuff that'll get the PSB knocking on your door! :D

You're going to be trolling your students anyway, though - unless you want to do an hour-long soliliquy - and I guess food might be a good place to start.

"Noodles are crap - discuss."
 
isitme said:
I'm in China not the UK

Telling stories is not that natural to me, and when I try and think up funny stories they always involve stuff I'd rather students didn't know I did since teachers are still highly respected over here
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Even easier. I do the same thing when I visit a school here.
It's a doddle but you need to be a tad extrovert go get the job over.
What age group?
 
Ok from a tactical point of view bear in mind that the most deceptive and the most important thing about public speaking is time.

When you're up in front of people you have their attention and also their time so make use of it.

Don't launch into some sort of babble.

Take a moment before you speak or even longer.

The words that come out after you start talking are more important than the silences that you leave in between, IYSWIM, so the attitude that you should have is that you have all the time in the world because any time you take up is meaningless and will always allow you to say better what you want to say.

This approach should allow you a bit of thinking room to tee yourself up.

Props can help in this spacing out of your thoughts and thence speech too.

Particularly helpful is a glass of water.

When you feel you're reaching a blank have a sip of water. And then even that small amount of time to take a sip will give you the breathing space to get your thread back.

Also, if it's a biggie, or if you're worried about it, imagine the situation going as well as it possibly could then visualise that for a good half hour before you start.
 
derf said:
Even easier. I do the same thing when I visit a school here.
It's a doddle but you need to be a tad extrovert go get the job over.
What age group?
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university students and some business types

the advice does all seem to be practice practice, i spose it's kind of inevitable....
 
And never apologise before you start for how you're not a good public speaker or how your speech is boring/rubbish/mundane. That kind of self-deprecation will not endear your audience to you. It'll only make them wonder what the hell they're doing listening to you.
 
isitme said:
university students and some business types

the advice does all seem to be practice practice, i spose it's kind of inevitable....
Click to expand...

Just consider what may be of interest to your audience and take it from there.
Many will wish to do business with the UK or go there for study so stories about UK live and places may well be of interest.

Speak deliberately and clearly but without any use of pigeon English.
It will help yu understand their mistakes in speaking English if you learn some Mandarin so you can understand their mistakes.

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Make a conscious effort to talk slowly, but remember to vary the intonation of your voice to avoid droning.

It sounds easy, but can be surprisingly difficult when you're nervous in front of an audience.
 
Get them to each to prepare a five minute presentation on their happiest childhood memories. Take notes and afterwards correct any clunky English. Get a dictionary of English idiom (Oxford Dictionary of Idiom is the best imo) and do a few classes on idiom. It's the sort of thing that trips up non-native speakers. Raining cats and dogs etc.
 
for what its worth,

its all about planning and practice. Make some notes on postcard sized bits of paper esp facts / info your likely to forget as this will help things flow

A good thing we were always told was:

Introduce yourself,
Tell 'em what your going to talk about
Talk about it
Tell 'em what you have talked about
Ask for questions / discussion

Also have a drink of water near to you, if things start to go wrong / you loose pace etc, stop, have a drink, gather your thoughts and carry on...this works really well.
 
  • Introduce yourself explaining how you like to bone, how good you are at it, what boning experience you have.
  • Tell 'em that you're going to talk about boning, the different sorts of boning
  • Talk about boning, who you'd like to bone, how you would bone them, boning through the ages, english boning vrs say swedish boning
  • Tell 'em what you have talked about
  • Ask for questions / discussion
  • Bone them
 
Some good advice but I'd add one thing. Do your damnedest to remember that in a crisis you have to talk more slowly. If you feel you are losing their attention, slow down. If you think part of the talk might be a mistake, slow down. If you panic, slow down. Ninety nine times out of a hundred if you should be talking at a different pace you should slow down.
 
Marius said:
  • Introduce yourself explaining how you like to bone, how good you are at it, what boning experience you have.
  • Tell 'em that you're going to talk about boning, the different sorts of boning
  • Talk about boning, who you'd like to bone, how you would bone them, boning through the ages, english boning vrs say swedish boning
  • Tell 'em what you have talked about
  • Ask for questions / discussion
  • Bone them
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that works for everything :cool:
 
tell them what you're going to speak about, speak about it, then tell them what you've just spoken about.

this is something i've been told about more formal speaking than what you're describing.

it's been referred to as a rule of 3's and they recommend you break down the 3 sections similarly.

but don't obsess about it, you should be natural and confident about what you're speaking about and clear about why you're saying it.
 
Why not just pick a thread or two of urban to talk about :)

Other than that, I'm not very good a public speaker but have done a little bit and yes you get better with time, the other thing I find really important, if rather obvious, is to know what you wan to say well so that when it comes to it you can concentrate on the delivery because you are not trying to think what to say next.
 
isitme said:
One of the things I have to do for my new job for 2 classes a week is to stand in front of 20 - 40 people and come up with something to talk about for an hour

I've never done anything like this before and I'm pretty shit at it, does anyone have any tips about how to relax, how to come up with ideas, how to keep people interested etc

I try to remember good lectures from university but they were more specialised, this is just for the sake of them practicing English so not too in depth

any tips? or even ideas for subjects
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I used to run workshops for people who generally knew more about a subject than I did, made me very nervous, but exhilarating afterwards. Im doing it at the moment.
The key to training and lectures I find it is to involve the students. Otherwise it becomes a passive activity for the listener and youre probably not that interesting.
One method I found particularly good for retention when I was studying is to talk about what you are going to talk about, then talk about it, then review what you have said.
Good luck with it all.
 
If you just burble on in much the same manner as you do here, that should keep them entertained well enough.
 
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