A few more thoughts on this self-help guide to public speaking. Lessons in rhetoric
Public speaking has been a useful skill at all times. People who are fluent in public speaking will always be in demand by society and will be able to find a job. It is no secret that there are few such people, they always stand out among others. They turn out to be successful leaders, politicians, businessmen, journalists, writers, teachers, since in many professions the knowledge of rhetoric plays a vital role. The purpose of this course in public speaking is to provide an opportunity for everyone to master online materials, lessons, exercises, techniques and rules for mastering the basics of rhetoric for free.
What is rhetoric?
This is a word that has an ancient Greek origin ( Greek rhetorike), and literally means “ oratory". What is “oratory”? And how to develop your abilities for it?
Each of us has performed in public at least several times in our lives. And, for sure, no one doubts that so that you need to know and be able to do a lot... It can be said that the ability to speak in public reflects our intellectual development and our social skills.
Famous talk by Martin Luther King
By definition Big Soviet Encyclopedia, « oratorical speech"Is a type of monologue speech used in a situation where the speaker addresses a large audience for the purpose of persuasion or suggestion. Often oratory is identified with eloquence, so a good orator should be well-read, have a competent speech, be able to clearly express their thoughts. But the speaker also needs to master his diction and have a well-placed voice. In addition, it is important to master speech improvisation, be able to answer questions, maintain contact with the audience, pronounce the text with the necessary intonation, and much, much more.
Most of the skills described, which together form the art of public speaking, can be learned. For this, it is important to work on yourself, to be aware of, analyze and correct the unfortunate moments of your own and others public speaking, and most importantly, train your skills in practice. Our training will help you work through all of these difficult steps towards developing great public speaking skills.
Do you want to test your knowledge?
If you want to test your theoretical knowledge on the topic of the course and understand how it suits you, you can take our test. In each question, only 1 option can be correct. After you have selected one of the options, the system automatically proceeds to the next question.
Online rhetoric lessons
Training on oratory featured on this site is an integration of many of the techniques described by public speaking experts. Each of the lessons involves the development of a specific skill that contributes to the development of your speaking skills. Naturally, each person can have these skills in different ways, so try to pay attention to those lessons that seem most useful to you.
Video
In this section of the training on the skill of public speaking, you can watch videos of famous speeches of prominent speakers: Martin Luther King, Steve Jobs, Vladimir Lenin and others. Also here you can find videos from various competitions, presentations and speeches of people to investors. In addition, the section contains video lessons from leading experts in the field of public speaking.
4 rules of rhetoric
- First rule. Start giving any speech with a strong desire to achieve your goal.
- Second rule. Always try to get ready to perform.
- Third rule. Show confidence even if you are not feeling confident.
- Fourth rule. Practice more (this is true for any other skill as well).
These four rules of public speaking are, in fact, the foundation of any good speech. If you do not set yourself goals to achieve great success in rhetoric, but only try to prepare for a specific speech, then they can be useful to you.
If you plan to approach the study of the art of public speaking in more detail, then we will be happy to provide you with a useful and interesting information in the lessons on our website.
We wish you success in mastering the art of public speaking!
Public speaking
Public speaking skills are required for any person speaking in front of an audience. Especially needed by executives, sales managers, novice teachers, students ...
You will learn how to speak to any audience on the course "Oratory"! It is based on the best developments of world and domestic oratory practice.
The course alternates between practical skills and theoretical studies. The combination of mini-lectures, brainstorming sessions, role-playing games, facilitations and business cases leads to great results. You will learn to speak calmly and confidently in public, get rid of fear, you will be able to speak on almost any topic, keeping the audience's attention!
During the lesson, you will learn:
- how to grab the audience's attention and keep it;
- how to work with voice and timbre;
- what means help to make the performance bright;
- how to turn minuses into pluses (psychological techniques);
- know-it-alls, talkers and people - "no": what to do with "difficult" participants;
- how to answer uncomfortable questions.
You will make your speech bright, interesting, lively and incendiary!
Rhetoric is the science of speech, correct and beautiful communication methods that can convince anyone that the speaker is right, and create the basis for further convictions. This art is studied in modern educational institutions because the word is a powerful tool if used correctly. The main purpose of rhetoric is to teach how to communicate in order to feel confident in any situation.
The emergence of rhetoric is considered to be the 5th century BC. NS. Ancient Greece was the first in modern Europe to form the foundations of science. While in Ancient Greece studied stylistics and grammar. The Greeks were the first to systematize knowledge of rhetoric and created a large number of treatises on this topic, and some of them are studied even in our time.
Cicero is one of the most famous orators of ancient Rome
The Romans became interested in the art of rhetoric after the conquest of Greece, when the traditions of these countries began to mix, and the empire actively borrowed the knowledge of their provinces. Art began to flourish in the Senate, courts, and public gatherings.
There were some differences between the styles of rhetoric, as the Romans were less educated than the Greeks. The conquerors' speech was dotted with digressions, stories, stylistic nuances. Despite this, eloquence was still a powerful tool for orators. There were cases when in Ancient rome high government posts were held by people who are proficient in speech, and this was their main advantage in political struggle, which we can learn from historical references.
Appearance in Russia
In ancient times, this art was modified, supplemented with useful techniques. Church leaders also began to use rhetoric, who actively lured new flock into their faith, and cited irrefutable verbal evidence against heretics. The concept of rhetoric came to Russia from European countries in the 18th century.
Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov
The emergence of oratory coincided with the spread of Christianity. It was most often called "the gift of eloquence". A little later, Lomonosov created the "Russian Grammar", which included the "Rules of Eloquence". Politicians such as Stolypin and Trotsky were considered good orators. A little less, but nevertheless, Lenin also succeeded in understanding this science.
Speaking skills can be developed independently. The development of speech requires training, accompanied by constant remarks to oneself, corrections and additions to skills. You need to notice all the mistakes that are made in order to try to correct them the next time you talk.
- use the right pace. Important feature, requiring assimilation. It is imperative to monitor the speed of the conversation, since too fast a speech does not have time to be absorbed by the listener, a slow one puts you to sleep, makes you become inattentive to phrases. Try to highlight important points with intonation, change the pitch of your voice. This attracts attention, does not let the interlocutor get bored;
- communicate with people. Talking about things at home is not enough to improve communication skills. It takes practice of communicating live. To relieve the accumulated tension during a long story, you need to use jokes that can be prepared in advance;
- use digressions. Sayings, humor, quotes from great people make speech less dry, allow you to make speech more evidence-based;
- put your voice. Pronunciation must be clear and correct. You should pronounce consonants, pronounce any sounds cleanly;
- talk about topics that others are interested in. You can start with one correct statement, and then smoothly lead to another, necessary to achieve the goal;
- maintain neutrality. The speaker should strive to reach agreement with everyone. Even if the interlocutor or several people are wrong, you should say "Yes, right, but ...", after which you can prove your point of view.
Improving speech
To develop your speaking skills, you need to practice. Otherwise, mastering them will not work. To improve there is a set of exercises:
- Relieves muscle clamps. The point is to facilitate the conversation process. To do this, you should:
- knead shoulders, neck rotational movements... The head should move as if under its own weight;
- warm up the forearms and hands as often as possible, rotate the joints in the shoulders;
- use circular movements of the hands at the elbows;
- Articulating. They develop and train lips, cheeks, tongue, hard and soft palate, lower jaw. The flexibility of the speech apparatus is developed, the muscles necessary for better pronunciation of sounds are strengthened. The tension is removed from the muscles, they are relaxed. You need to do the following:
- tongue clean the gums in both directions. To make "injections" in the cheeks, pull it as far as possible, change its shape. Make sounds like a horse galloping;
- rotate your lips in different directions, pull them out. Capture air with extended lips, strain and relax. There will be lightness and clarity in the conversation;
- puff out cheeks, roll air in the mouth from one cheek to the other. It is imperative to knead them, otherwise the voice will be flabby;
- to yourself, without opening your mouth, pronounce various words, sounds. The pharynx is trained, as a result of which the sound becomes loud and deep;
- open the jaw smoothly with your hands. Muscle efforts and excess tension are relieved.
- Improving pronunciation, increasing vocabulary. Exercise List:
- reading aloud. Counts the best way improve public speaking skills. Diction improves, vocabulary, speech brightness, emotional coloring increase. You should read slowly, pronouncing each word. The text is pronounced not in a reader's tone, but in a colloquial manner;
- pronouncing tongue twisters. Diction is effectively trained by pronouncing words and sounds at maximum speed. The correct articulation is developed, reservations are less common.
When reading, each sound is clearly pronounced, the speed increases gradually. The main thing is to follow correct pronunciation, only then speed up the speech. For convenience, you need to create a picture of what is happening in your head, try to understand the words read. You should not stop working on one phrase until the errors completely disappear.
If possible, keep a dictaphone record of both material read from the book and tongue twisters. Thus, speech deficiencies found after listening can be eliminated.
There are many pronunciation exercises that improve your speaking skills. The above options are sufficient for novice speakers. With their help, you can achieve considerable success. The main thing in oratory is not to stop developing, constantly improve your skills, and talk as much as possible.
Oratory is one of the most valuable skills that will help you to convey your point of view to your interlocutor concisely, beautifully and without any problems. There are people who are speakers by nature, just give them a topic and you can listen for hours. But what about those who want to master these skills, but the nature of innate abilities did not give?
Public speaking, like any other skill, can be developed, trained, improved. In this article we will give 6 useful tips, thanks to which you can develop incredible abilities in yourself, and in less than a month speak freely in public, concentrating the attention of the audience on your speech.
1. What is the biggest challenge for aspiring speakers? As a rule, this is an insufficient vocabulary and a limited vocabulary. The solution is simple, you need to speak, speak and speak again. You can do this at home. Take any object that you see - a hairdryer, a vase, a frying pan, in general, it doesn't matter what it will be. And then, for 5 minutes, try to tell about it, describe all the features of this subject, explain how wonderful and necessary it is. It will be difficult at first, but over time you will easily cope with this task. When you see that five minutes is not enough, then increase the time, tell 10, 20, 30 minutes. I knew people who, without any special problems, could talk for hours on a given topic, while never repeating themselves in phrases and their thoughts.
3. Speech rate is another trait worth learning. Watch how you speak. Too fast speech, the listener may not make out, and slow drives into boredom. Try to pause, highlight the right places with intonations, raise and lower your voice, thereby attracting the attention of the audience.
4. Talking about objects at home is good, but in order to hone your oratory skills, you need to communicate more with real people. The easiest way to hone public speaking is for students. You have access to speeches in front of your group, and during the speech you can track the reaction, behavior of the audience, their mood and desire to listen.
5. Your speech should not be dry. Try to use sayings, quotes from time to time famous people as well as humor. By the way, humor plays a very important role. The ability to joke on time and aptly is the quality of a good speaker who can hold his audience without any problems, and at the right time relieve the accumulated tension.
Over time, when you expand your vocabulary and begin to apply all the knowledge gained in practice, you will notice how your speech has changed, how the interlocutor attentively listens to each spoken word, how the audience closely follows your utterances and phrases.
Conscious speech is one of the most valuable "gifts" of evolution to mankind. Having pronounced the first word, the child begins active communication with society, and the task of the parents is to make it effective and successful. Eloquence, the ability to speak clearly, beautifully, to clearly build the logic of the narrative, must be developed and honed from the moment the children realize their personality. Junior's child and adolescence with high speech culture achieves the set goals and integrates into society much easier than peers who do not have the skills of fruitful communication.
Why do young children and adolescents need rhetoric lessons?
Rhetoric is a science that helps to reveal the communicative potential of a child. Children from three to six years old already actively communicate with peers, relatives, other adults, and this socialization directly affects the formation of the personality, its psychological "foundation". The art of persuading and "representing oneself" in society is closely related to the ability to build verbal communication links. If the child learns to speak coherently, beautifully and to the point, it will be easier for him to enter into dialogues, convey his thought or request, persuade and communicate. He will be able to study more successfully at school, university, build business communication and move up the career ladder. Great Russian scientists (I. Pavlov, M. Lomonosov) called rhetoric the basis for the formation of correct thinking and the ability to think logically. Without competent speech, even knowing the subject, a student will not be able to successfully speak at the blackboard or at an oral exam, and an adult speaker will not be able to defend his opinion in front of the assembled colleagues or the board of directors. Correctly selected exercises, rhetoric lessons, built in accordance with the age and characteristics of the child, help:- learn how to convey information to any interlocutor, formulate convincing arguments, clearly and coherently express an idea;
- improve diction, make speech smooth, rich intonation, articulated;
- it is clear to speak without raising the voice and "control the volume" of speech for their own purposes;
- during speeches, correctly reinforce words with intonation, gestures and facial expressions;
- quickly find accurate formulations, supplement speech with beautiful and not "overloaded" images that fit the situation;
- formulate questions in such a way as to get the most useful answer;
- correctly analyze and evaluate situations that arise during communication;
- to come into contact with little and unfamiliar people of higher rank (bosses, teachers, examiners);
- learn to listen carefully, follow the sequence of speaking, be patient with the interlocutor;
- develop your own oratory style and avoid mistakes when speaking;
- to become more self-confident, to speak freely in front of any audience without physical and psychological constraints.
How to learn rhetoric and public speaking
To achieve the above and other goals, rhetoric widely uses:- individual or group trainings with professional mentors, in which children and adolescents learn interaction and public speaking;
- special exercises for speaking, memorizing, logic, reading - they are performed at home or in the classroom;
- additional homework with parents - games, reading aloud, and so on.
- be regular - parents and teachers need to correctly draw up a schedule of classes and adhere to it so that everyday small efforts "melt" into a serious, large-scale result;
- communicate with a single approach and goal - consistency allows you to both formulate a problem and quickly solve it;
- include not only direct lessons in rhetoric, but also exercises that develop the imagination, improve reading and speech writing skills, literary and stage tasks.
How to do rhetoric exercises
Before any lesson, you need to prepare the room: ventilate it, “cut off” all extraneous sounds - turn off the music, close the window or door. During classes, the adults present - parents, practicing teachers - should be positioned so that the child sees all the movements that he needs to repeat. If the children are small, it is necessary to sit down, otherwise they will not consider the movements of the jaw and tongue. During the exercise you need:- monitor the position of the body - the child must straighten the body, straighten the chest;
- create the right atmosphere and "mood" - a child or restless teenager can talk and train for a long time and with enthusiasm only with good mood;
- speak at the right pace - pronounce all the words in the exercise slowly, with an arrangement, but without unnecessary pauses.
- Opening the mouth. The lips are stretched in a smile, the lower jaw is slowly lowered, making sure that the tongue does not strain. You need to keep your mouth wide open for up to 10 seconds, then slowly close it and repeat up to 5 times without changing the pace. For young children, the exercise is compared to yawning an animal or feeding chicks in a nest to make the little ones more interesting.
- Smile. Students slowly stretch their lips, making sure that they do not twist, and the jaws do not strain. It will take 3-4 repetitions. Exercise will help you learn to smile beautifully by gently showing your front teeth.
- Pulling the lips. They need to be closed and pulled into a "tube", holding them in a tense position for 5-10 seconds. The lower jaw should not protrude forward. You need to do 3 to 5 repetitions.
Classic home rhetoric exercises
At home, it is recommended to perform basic exercises aimed at improving the speech and cognitive apparatus. For children of preschool and primary school age, the following are suitable:- expressive reading aloud - adults pronounce the phrase, and the child repeats it, maintaining the pace and intonation;
- explanation of concepts and formulation of definitions - an adult begins a phrase, and a child ends ("an apple, this is a fruit that ...");
- rhyming first words, then phrases;
- finding differences between objects, concepts;
- “Listening to silence”, describing the sounds in the room and outside the window that are heard when people are silent (birdsong, ticking of a clock);
- pronouncing tongue twisters or chants, supported by gestures - at each phrase, the child must rhythmically clap his hands, stamp his feet;
- selection of synonyms and words related to a specific topic, and so on.
- "Alphabet" (for speech associativity) - selection first individual words, then whole phrases starting with a certain letter, and at the end - a coherent story;
- "Drawing objects" (to develop the skill of gestures) - leading a story on a chosen topic, where each word is supported by descriptive gestures;
- "The story on free topic»(On creativity in speech): the presenter sets the beginning of the story, each participant sequentially continues it, then the next person is given a new task.
