ADVANCED PRONUNCIATION & PUBLIC SPEAKING – A MAP FOR NON-NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS 1/2

more a cheat sheet! based on lessons held by Marion Odell at British Council in Milan – November 2012, editing by Dario Morandotti

The Bare Truth - Learned strategies tend to be abandoned in stress situations. They need to be internalized with practice.

Inform Educate

Persuade Entertain

1) Strategy: What goal? What’s in for me?

A- Introduction

• Start with a bang (if applicable)

• What topic, why

• Who you are

• What route, how long will take, what will be seen along the route

• Invite to collaborate or to question - at the end or along the road

• Remember the policy (cell phone, laptop, etc. – if applicable)

B- Body

• Summary before moving to next point (applicable only

to long presentation)

C- Conclusion

• Closing remarks

• Link to introduction

• Next steps

• Call to action or set a challenge; leave a quotation

D- Questions (if applicable)

• Check understanding (repeat and rephrase if necessary)

• Address with a strategy (Deal, Define, Defuse, Divide, Defer, Disarm, Decline) – can be

a multiple strategy

E- Closure

• References and material information

• Feedback (if applicable)

• Thanks everyone, give credit (if applicable)

1.Draft the key points on paper or on tools (Mind Mapping is great) – don’t wait midnight of the

day before

2.Develop visual aids

• PowerPoint or Prezi or drawing on the whiteboard (or a mix)

• Reuse already tested material

• Write titles as compelling short sentences – benefit oriented; only one concept per slide;

1 to 3 min speech per slide

• Graphics eat words for lunch

• Put some dynamic and tension point (eye capturing) in the slide

• Use animation (with care)

• Seek advice from the graphic professional!

• PowerPoint it’s only a tool …

3.Briefly script your speech; average sentence should last 5-6 seconds and have 5 stressed

words

4.Check & improve your script for pace, stress (tonic, emphatic or contrastive), chunking,

short/long pauses, transitional phrases, signposts, cleft sentences, inversions, repetitions,

plural/singular verbs, articles, adverbs position, jargons, terms and acronyms

5.Record/film yourself (or test with a friend):

1.First Rehearsal with script and visuals – control time, check grammar, syntax, pronunciation

(use dictionary for proper accent - most difficult are the aspirated “h”, the initial “th” and

the past tense ending in “ed”), raising / lowering intonation; restructure script if necessary

2.Second Rehearsal only with visuals and standing up - refine, improve vocabulary, check and

improve your body language, learn by heart the first two sentences;

sense check all: “Am I telling bs?”

6.Perfect your visuals and signposts for your speech; every details count here; they will read

before you can talk of the point; decide if/what/when distribute material

7.You are ready. Sleep well and take time to relax. Arrive early and check room and hardware,

devil is in the details

3) Speech structure

2) Before the presentation: it’s build time

1.Control your speed with milestones; not too fast (for non-English mother tongue -> speed

doesn’t mean fluency) and not too slow

2.Control intonation, avoid monotone

3.Check if people are following

4.Control your body language:

• Stand up and go on the stage

• Posture upright, head up

• Make eyes contact and move slowly, do not shift continuously

• Nod and do not frown

• Don’t check your watch with evidence (search in advance if a wall clock is visible)

• Comfortable arms, palms up, no fiddling

• Don’t scratch your head (or else …)

4) During the presentation: control

Improvisation

won’t work.

Be prepared!

Remember: they are coming

from another organization,

not another planet!

Avoid “death by

PowerPoint”!

Add the

“human touch”,

favor interaction,

allow some flexibility

See Minto Pyramid

Principle® approach

on next page

For Q&A see Kees

Garman’s approach

on next page

For more help

www.howjsay.com – pronunciation (also iPhone/Android app), http://dictionary.cambridge.org & http://www.merriam-webster.com/ dictionaries

on line with pronunciation, http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/ - phonetic alphabet & pronunciation tips,

http://www.usingenglish.com – collection of tools and resources

For more help

www.howjsay.com – pronunciation (also iPhone/Android app), http://dictionary.cambridge.org & http://www.merriam-webster.com/ dictionaries

on line with pronunciation, http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/ - phonetic alphabet & pronunciation tips,

http://www.usingenglish.com – collection of tools and resources

For typical

signposting

see next page

For more

techniques see

next page

KISS -

keep it short and

simple

ADVANCED PRONUNCIATION & PUBLIC SPEAKING – A MAP FOR NON-NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS 2/2

more a cheat sheet! based on lessons held by Marion Odell at British Council in Milan – November 2012, editing by Dario Morandotti

Pauses – Chose the right one

/ short // long U stressed words

Example from the movie “Disclosure”:

“What’re selling here is freedom./We offer through

technology what religion and revolution have promised

and never delivered.//Freedom from the physical

body,/freedom from race and gender,/from nationality

and personality,/from place and time.//”

Cleft Sentences – An elegant way to emphasize

• What + spotlighted information+ is + finishing

• It’s + spotlighted information+ that + finishing

• What happens + spotlighted information+ is + finishing

Examples:

“They are using technology for …” -> “What they are

doing is using the technology for …”

The project is doing well because …” -> It’s because …

that the project is proceeding well …”

“The system is able to …” -> What happens is the

system is able to …”

Inversion – Give a formal touch to the presentation

• Inversion: adverbial + inversion subject/verb (as in

interrogative form)

Examples:

“Not only gives John visibility over projects but also …”

“Under no circumstances must Mary be …”

“No sooner had the assessment started than we found …”

Signposting – Key words that mark the stages

“…move on” – passing to the next point

“…turn to” – changing to a new topic

“…expand/elaborate” – giving more details

“…digress” – going a bit off topic

“…go back” – referring to an earlier point

“…summarize” – giving the outline of the point

“…recap” – repeating the main points

“…remark” – closing

Questions? “Actually I’m glad you asked that…”

Kees Garman’s system: buy time, classify questions in 6

types and reply with 8 D* strategy

1. GOOD -> DEAL with it straight away

2. DIFFICULT -> DEFINE exactly what the question is

then DEFLECT to someone else or DEFER until later

(parking lot) or DISARM admitting you don’t know or

DECLINE but give a reason

3. OFF TOPIC -> DEFINE exactly what the question is

than DEFER until later (parking lot)

4. UNNECESSARY -> DEAL with it straight away briefly

5. MULTIPLE -> DIVIDE into sub-questions

6. HOSTILE -> DEFUSE negativity before answering,

then DEAL with it

The Minto Pyramid Principle® (the logic in writing)

Narrative pattern of story-telling:

• Situation – what we know

• Complication – a change or perturbation

• Question – what or how to do

• Answer – finding or recommendation

The parts in a whole:

• Mutually exclusive of each other

• Collectively exhaustive

• Limited to the underlying logic of the effect or

category

Reasoning:

• Deductive – Start with rule and demonstrate validity

by applying to a case and checking the results

• Inductive - Different cases leading to various results

that infer the rule

• Abductive - Test a number of hypotheses, the

successful turn into a rule

Pyramid:

Grouping a number of sentences into a paragraph with

logical relationship. Sentences are needed to express

a single idea in the paragraph and are a summary of

the ideas in the paragraphs one level below.

Exactly as bringing together sections to form a

document and the single idea of the document

expressed in the executive summary.

Check if the pyramid grouping is correct:

• Ideas at any level in the pyramid must always be

summaries of the ideas grouped below them

• Ideas in each grouping must always be of the same

kind of idea

• Ideas in each grouping must always be logically

ordered

www.barbaraminto.com

Stress – The foundation for correct intonation

• Tonic – main syllable receive the most;

“That was a difficult test” (U stressed syllable)

• Emphatic – calls attention to extraordinary;

“That was a difficult test” (hints: extremely,

terribly, completely, utterly, especially, etc.)

• Contrastive – point out the difference;

“That was a difficult test”