Do you fear speaking in front of many people? do you have that so called “stage fright”? If you’re going to ask me, my answer is definitely "YES!" Yes I do have that fear and I really don’t want to speak in front of many people because when I am required to speak in front of a crowd, my knees, hands and even my voice shake. I also remember experiencing mental blocks. I am also afraid that someone will ask me and I won’t know the answer, that’s why I always have the summary of my reports written in a small piece of paper. Well that was before when I still don’t have the knowledge, wisdom and courage. This training helped me a lot!
We all know that most of us have that fear, but do you know what FEAR really means? As our dear Bro. JM Comia told us F.E.A.R. means:
FAITH
ENTHUSIASM
ANTICIPATION
RESPECT
Let me share some tips that I’ve learned from this training. Before, when I am assigned to report some topics or lessons in class during my high school and college days, I just memorize the topics and its meaning and descriptions that are written in the books. I do some research to get some knowledge, ask someone or consult my teacher or professor to help me understand more about the topic, but sometimes I just want to read my outline because it is easier. If talking to people and explaining something about your topic in school is difficult, what more if you’re going to speak to them about God, about what’s in the Bible, and about His promises to us, that’s why we have “Communication and Public Speaking” in talk 1 of Speaker’s Training. As the speaker told us, firstly, we need to plan our talk. We must study the expanded outline of the talk, we must seek input from our elders and leaders (I did it before) and we should analyze who our audience is. Secondly, we must “Prepare our Talk”. In preparing our talk we need the following: a.) praying and offering our efforts to God, it is important that we pray to Him for His guidance so we can deliver our talks as what God wants us to say b.) read and internalize so we can understand deeply our topics; jot down and prioritize c.) write our introduction, it must be enthusiastic and brief d.) flesh out the talk; mark the important points of the talk outline; and e.) write our conclusion. These are the things we need to do on preparing our talks. Additional tips from our dear Bro. JM Comia on giving a good talk are: be conversational in tone; use normal language, and make our talk simple. This can help the audience to fully understand what we are talking about and what message we want to convey.
After planning and preparing, the next is “Practicing and Delivering Your Talk”. When I was still studying I did that practicing, I was reporting and talking to my friends and after that I asked them how’s my report? Do I have to add something? What about this and that? We have some guidelines on practicing and delivering our talks. Our dear Sis. Grace Adel was the speaker of this topic, I learned that if we practice our talks we must finish each practice and we need to set time so we can arrange our talks according to the time they will give us, and usually in SFC it will be 30 to 45 minutes per talk. Approaches in practicing our talk means we need to practice our talk by starting with warming up, doing a mental draft, speaking draft and standing draft - don’t think that we are just practicing, think that it is our actual talk. In practicing our talk, we also need to have evaluation and feedback, this includes the mirrored draft, taped draft and the live audience draft. This will help us to know which part we need to change, correct, and apply what we think is best to deliver our talk. After the evaluation and feedback we finally have our final drafts which includes practicing the rough spots and the revised notes, then finalize. There’s one more thing we need to consider, we need to have our dress rehearsal, we must be presentable and aware of what will wear for us to be respectable and for the audience to not be distracted. There are 3 factors on how to deliver our talks, first is verbal delivery, it’s about how we talk, we must show enthusiasm, draw empathy, show our personality, we must control our voice and our words. Second is the non-verbal delivery, we must wear a smile, make eye contact, use gestures, walk around and watch out for mannerism. Lastly, do not inject rumors or use green jokes.
On the day of our talk, we might feel very nervous, we can’t focus and sometimes we want to quit, we want to go and not do the talk, but we must stay confident in the Lord. When I was in college, before the class starts and I know that I am going to give a report, I simply pray to God to give me knowledge and strength. I’ve learned in this talk that we must minimize unrelated pre-talk activities and get ready for the session itself so that we will stay in focus, relaxed and ready before they call us to deliver the talk. Be relaxed while you wait, don’t make any significant last minute changes because it might affect your talk. I got some beautiful quotes that I saw on the slide of Sis. Grace’s talk, it says “When you speak something you passionately care about, you will be more confident in your element.” and “Stay true in the dark and humble in the spotlight.” That’s why I encourage everyone to attend this training it will help you to boost your confidence and will give you the knowledge, wisdom and courage.
Don’t forget that the key to a successful talk is to pray and to offer your talk to God. I remember that I asked my mother once about how she and my father speak in front of many people when they conduct their CLP and when they are tapped to talk. My mother told me that when they were still new in the community, if my father was tapped to give a talk, he always asks my mother to help him, that’s why my mother writes what my father is going to say, then she told me that they are praying before reading their outline to guide them. As time goes by, she told me that my father is now better than her when delivering talks as they serve as unit heads and are tapped always. He can deliver his talk by himself and I can prove that, that’s why I am very proud of them. Who knows? Maybe sooner or later one of the team heads and leaders will tap me to deliver a talk. ;)
Always give back the glory to our God. May God be Praised!
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