Module 3: The Novel - Painting the Black

Lesson 3.3C: Speak Your Mind

Whew, you've done a lot of work! I'll bet you've learned a few startling things through the process of completing this module and writing your paper, and are itching to share some of them with people around you. Hopefully, you've already been talking to people about your topic. Now it's time to build your new knowledge into an oral presentation, to share your ideas with a larger audience.

This assignment is not a call to stand up and read your multi-paragraph composition word for word. All that will do is generate a yawn from your audience. How can you make an exciting oral presentation from the information you have gathered so far?

Before you read this lesson, take a few minutes to read the instructions for Section Assignment 3.3B: Oral Presentation. Familiarize yourself with the expectations of the assignment. The purpose the lesson to follow is to help you prepare for this presentation.

Oral Presentation
There are two basic ingredients to an engaging presentation:

A confident, well-prepared, speaker (that's you, because you know a lot about your topic by now!), and some great visuals. You can, however, polish your speech by being aware of these additional elements of an oral presentation.

Style
Can you look yourself in the mirror and say your multi-paragraph composition thesis, and believe yourself? These were your original choices:

• Media images and gender stereotyping can promote teenage insecurities, OR
• Old-fashioned gender roles are promoted in the media and in our society.

If you find the topic too formal, or too stuffy when you say it out loud, find a new way to state your topic that suits your presentation style, and your audience. For example:

• Media images can make us insecure. (If you are a teen, you can refer to yourself as "us". However, it would be best to use the word "teens" somewhere in your introduction to clarify the topic for the audience.
• The media tells "women to be women, and men to be men." This is another way to say that media enforces gender roles.

In the multi-paragraph composition assignment you used third-person point of view to deliver your opinions. In an oral presentation, you should not rely on first-person entirely, but you can occasionally state your personal view, experience, or opinion using "I," "we," or "us" for emphasis.

Speaking Notes
Rather than read your multi-paragraph composition, or a "script," when you give the oral presentation, you should use speaking notes. These notes are written onto recipe cards or similarly sized pieces of paper, which you can inconspicuously hold in your hand or move across a podium, to guide your presentation.

You already know the content of your oral presentation, because you wrote the multi-paragraph composition; so the notes just act as cues to keep you on track with your presentation. You write simple topics, words, or phrases on the cards to jog your memory, and then say what you know about the topic in your own words.

Using speaking notes allows you to speak naturally, to always phrase your ideas in a persuasive and "fresh" way, and to elaborate or reduce a point if necessary, depending on your audience or the amount of time left for giving your presentation.

You can modify your information to suit the audience. For example, perhaps something dramatic happened when you were out with friends last night, which makes a perfect example for your topic. Then you should use the example, and fit it in where it would work best to support the thesis. Recipe cards are useful because you may want to change the order of some of the topics for the oral presentation.

On your cards, use exaggerated punctuation marks to remind you of the kind of emphasis you want to give for the point. If it is a sad point, put a sad face. If it is a dramatic point, use an exclamation mark. If you want to say the words really loudly, write them in capitals. If you want to pause after the point for effect, add a long dash or an ellipsis… This will help you to pace yourself and remind you to modify your voice, especially if you get nervous.

Tips for Delivering the Oral Presentation

Voice:
Your personal style is one element working for you in an oral presentation. You should speak naturally to the audience, as you would to a group of family or friends. However, there are aspects of voice that you can practise and perfect, to make your presentation as interesting as possible to your audience. They are:

1. Volume: This refers to how loud or soft your voice is. It is not only important to speak with enough volume to be heard clearly, volume should vary according to the message. A good speaker speaks softly to emphasize certain points, loudly to emphasize others.
2. Rate: This refers to how quickly or slowly you speak. As with volume, you may vary the rate according to the message. Inexperienced speakers most often speak too quickly, rushing to get the speech over with. If this is your tendency, relax, allow yourself a breath between sentences or phrases, and slow down.
3. Pitch: This refers to how high or low one's voice sounds. Your range of pitch is determined by the physiology of your voice box. Within that range, you can vary the pitch or tone to avoid a monotonous, boring presentation.
4. Pronunciation: Correct pronunciation is very important. Be sure to check the pronunciation of any unfamiliar words in the dictionary before making your presentation.
5. Articulation: This refers to how clearly you pronounce each consonant and vowel sound. You must say them clearly (say "going to" instead of "gonna"); however, don't go overboard and speak in a false way. You don't need to sound like a Shakespearean actor to sound scholarly. You just need to know your stuff!
6. Fluency: When you speak smoothly, without hesitation, you speak with fluency. This also includes choosing appropriate points to pause; use punctuation marks on your speaking notes as your guidelines for pausing. Put a long dash, an ellipsis, or an extra large period to indicate a pause.
7. Expression: Speaking with expression is communicating emotion through your voice appropriate to the words being said. If you are indignant because of your topic, you should sound indignant. If you are sad, sound sad. If you are hopeful, sound hopeful, and so on. If you speak with expression, your oral presentations sound genuine and are worth listening to.

Hint: Listen again to “I'm Not My Brother; I'm Me.” This time, focus your attention to how Jonathan presents his monologue. Listen to his volume, rate, and pitch. What do you notice? How does his effective speaking skills help you to understand his message?

Eye Contact
If you were listening to a presenter who never once lifted his eyes from the floor, would he keep your attention, or better, would he seem convincing? Your eye contact is an important tool for persuasion. When you make a strong point, look someone or several people directly in the eye, and mean it. Regularly during your presentation, look at different members of the audience, in the back row, at the front, on the right. Each time you look at a person and catch his eye, he is drawn into your topic and more likely to be affected by your opinion.

Body Language
Scratching, shuffling, clearing your throat, and other habitual behaviours can be very distracting to the audience, even if you don't notice that you are doing it. Usually nervousness is a cause for repeated behaviours, so good speaking notes and good practice are the best cures.

When you are presenting, stand tall and naturally. Do not sit down unless you must, and if so, have nothing between you and the audience. You could have a table beside you for your notes.

You can move around in front of the audience, but not often. It would be best to move around to support your visuals. Perhaps they are mounted on a board behind you, and you can move to them when they arise in your speech, then step back. Or some objects might be on a display table. At the appropriate time you can go to the table, point to or hold up the object, speak to it, and then set it down and move away. If you are using a computer slide presentation such as PowerPoint to support your presentation, be sure to face the audience, not the images on the screen; point to the images as they arise in your speech. Sometimes switching to a blank screen between visuals can help to draw the audience back to you and your speech.

Avoid having your back to the audience for an extended time. If you need to write on a board behind you, look over your shoulder to the audience or turn fully around between each point that you write or draw onto the board. Better, use a flip chart that is half turned to the audience so that you don't need to turn right around. It should be positioned so that everyone in the room can see it easily.

Practice and Preparation
Some people believe that practising a speech in front of a mirror can be too artificial. Others feel it is the only way to know how you appear when you are presenting. If you are confident about your topic, you will appear confident. It is important to practise your presentation using the speaking notes and visuals for several reasons:

• You will become familiar with the abbreviations on the cards and know exactly what they are referring to when you deliver your speech.
• You will perfect the volume, rate, and pitch you want to use for each point.
• You will know how long your presentation will take, and can tailor it if you need to.

Review the instructions to Section Assignment 3.3C: Oral Presentation to ensure you have completed all the components of this section assignment.

Go to Writing on the Run! and complete the tutorial and exercises on the "Word Forms."

Complete Section Assignment 3.3D: Grammar Quick Quiz and Section Assignment 2.3E: Journal Entries in the assignment template now.

Summary
Completing this lesson has helped you to:

• consider and choose an appropriate oral style for yourself and your audience.
• prepare speaking notes for an oral presentation.
• understand how to use your voice to improve the impact of your presentation.
• consider how body language can enhance or detract from your presentation.

Section Summary
You have now completed Section 3: The Novel, Life, and You. You have explored a number of concepts in this section relating to the social issues in your novel. As well, you have written an expository composition and delivered an oral presentation.

Review the following list to ensure you have completed all assignments for this section:

• Section Assignment 3.3A: The Expository Multi-paragraph Composition
• Section Assignment 3.3B: Oral Presentation
• Section Assignment 3.3C: Grammar Quick Quiz
• Section Assignment 3.3D: Journal Entries