Public Speaking: Body Language, Pt. 1

So, we spent the last three blogs discussing how to use your voice when speaking to an audience.  The next couple will focus on body language.

How you carry yourself is not something you can really learn from a book, nor should you have to – you’ve spent your whole life using body language and facial expressions in your communication with others.  Some cultures use more aggressive body language, gestures and such, but everyone does it naturally to some level in normal conversation.

The key is becoming comfortable enough with speaking to an audience that you can relax and use your body language to add to enhance your presentation to highlight how you feel about specific ideas or feelings.  You may find that as you work on this not only will it help enthuse your audience it will actually help you with a more enthusiastic delivery.

A lack of relaxed body language could send a message to your audience that you’re indifferent, or you delivery may come across as stiff and uncomfortable.

So, let’s look at gestures. There are really two kinds – descriptive and emphatic.  Descriptive gestures express action.  Something is big, wide, tall, etc.  Someone is over there, far away, or close by. These would generally be gestures that would come naturally in a conversation; when speaking to an audience you simply need to magnify them, make them more expressive so your listeners can see them.

Emphatic gestures express feelings.  They should be use to reinforce ideas, punctuation, etc.  Use them in concert with emphasis in your voice.  

Another area to consider is your facial expressions.  It’s been said the eyes are a window; think about how you can watch another person and often know what they’re feeling by what’s showing on their face.  You can add to your delivery by matching your facial expression to what you’re trying to communicate.  Questions, excitement, puzzlement, etc. can all be communicated by appropriate facial expressions.  And don’t forget to smile!

You can practice this by reading passages from a favorite book, thinking about how the characters in the book might express themselves, or how you might express the ideas being covered.

Finally, when considering facial expression – don’t forget to make eye contact with your audience. All of those great expressions may be lost if you’re not looking at the audience.  Sometimes we may tend to look down at our notes, so it may be a habit we need to overcome.  Eye contact can convey trust or friendship, so it’s an important thing to remember when speaking to your audience.  One thing that you can do when speaking to a large audience is simply pick out a few people in various locations and then speak directly to them.  From the audience perspective you’re making good eye contact, while focusing on single individuals can reduce your own stress levels.

More to come next week!