The art of public speaking- win them over with confidence.

It's the annual day. You are gonna be on stage in a minute to present your speech. You have been preparing it for more than a month, you have said it in front of the mirror for numerous times, you have enacted it in front of your friends. Your name is called and a bead of sweat forms on your forehead. Your palms get sweaty and you feel like you have forgotten everything you have read for the past month. Most of us have been in this situation at least once in our life. Be it school, college or even workplace, we have faced stage fear, fear of speaking in front of an audience. Some of us even fear it now. Kids or adults, stage fear is a stranger to none. Let us see how we can tackle it and come out as expert orators. How do you begin preparing for your speech? You list down the major points. Stat making an order in which you will go on with you talk. Once you get the speech ready, read it. Thoroughly. For as many times as you can. Then start speaking. Speak in front of a mirror to view your hand and face movements and your expressions. Get a small audience of your own and practise in front of them. Now is the time the curtains rises and you enter the stage. With so my lights your eyes can hardly see a crowd. And slowly it becomes clear, you see the hall filled with people and your confidence starts to drain. How do you proceed? Take a deep breath. Close your eyes and clear your head. Forget about the crowd for a moment. Enjoy the experience. You are waiting for this for so long, preparing so hard. Now open your eyes and words will start flowing out of your mouth. You begin with your speech. You remember it well and you have people's attention as well. As you proceed you see that the audience is starting to divert. You start panicking again. What will you do then? You can add some customized last moment content to your speech. Talk about the weather or the city you are in or put in some sarcasm or a joke to lighten the mood. This will keep the crowd engaged in your speech and they will look forward to listening to what you have to say further. Good going! You are halfway done with your speech, confident and funny, you are conquering the stage. That's when you make a glitch. You pronounce a word wrong or mumble while completing a sentence. What now? Are you making a fool of yourself? Don't curse yourself. We are all humans and we make mistakes. Also, there are a lot of chances, a lot of people did not even hear it. Don't make it obvious. If you were loud and your audience knows about your blunder, you can always be honest and accept it. Make a joke about it. We all like a person who can laugh at himself as well. Almost there. Good beginning, check. Jokes and relatable content, check. Engaging the audience, check. How about a quick communicative session at the end? Add questions to the climax of the speech. For example, if it is an awakening or a serious topic, you can end with some rhetorical questions. A hanging end always makes the speech more appealing. If it's an informative speech, add some FAQs or take a Q&A session. VEMS strongly believes that public speaking is an important skill and with some practise and the right amount of confidence, every child can become a good orator. We arrange a range of activities like elocution competition or poem reciting or story telling which helps our students take the front seat and speak their heart out. Here begins the journey of transforming into an excellent public speaker. Let us together help our kids to learn the art of public speaking, to enjoy it and excel at it.