Audio Speaking Lessons - Take your Speaking Skill Ability to the Next Level!
A part of our interacting with an audience has to do with our body language. Imagine someone who has something very exciting to say. Now while they are telling you this exciting piece of news their arms are glued to their sides and their face looks like it is numb. This picture in our mind no doubt shows us how unnatural it can be if someone does not use body language or expression in speaking publicly. That is where gestures and facial expressions are important to us as speakers.
What is a gesture? We can gesture with our hand or hands. With our gesture we can express a lot. You can give the emotion of something being good, romantic, bad or offensive with a gesture. Think of a person or parent who is trying to get their young child to come to them. What do they do? Don’t they open their hands with palms facing up to signal to this young child to come to them? And it works.
Tell me which you think would benefit an audience most. Someone who says they caught a fish that was big or someone who says they caught a fish that was this big and uses a gesture with their hands to show how big that this was. It’s clear that the gesture helped because it was more descriptive. I hope I’m selling you on gestures and facial expressions with your public speaking outings. Using them will make you appear to be more experienced than most public speakers even if you are not.
Facial expressions are important as well. The face is something that can communicate without even using the mouth to speak. Someone who does not enjoy a certain type of food usually will make a face. That face tells everyone around him that what he’s eating he does not like. Facial expressions can also note care or love. We can use facial expressions to help someone accept a statement that we are making.
Using gestures and facial expressions even has an effect on you as a public speaker. Believe it or not it can stir you and your voice to better speaking. For instance someone who smiles while they talk angrily will find that very difficult. If your hands and believe it or not your face are involved in your communication as a public speaker your talk will be enlivened.
The study of gesturing can take some time and remember that it is something that you want to come natural as you speak. You don’t want to force a gesture and how much better it is to have a gesture on the spot than to try and plan one out. Gesturing can come naturally if you make an effort to use it in your everyday speaking.
Facial expressions really should not be hard for most of us to do either. Try to form opinions on certain things especially what you’re going to speak about. If you really like it your face is going to show your audience and they will be able to read that by your facial expression. You can also loosen yourself up for good facial expressions by simply smiling at your audience before you begin.
Lastly study others who are good with gesturing and facial expressions. You can learn a lot from other people by seeing how they communicate without speaking. Some of the best and most experienced at facial expressions and gesturing can actually come from those who are involved in acting or making movies. You can also learn a lot from those who are in positions of public office.