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emco: english >Know-how >Writing and Speaking >Make a Speech >
Make a Speech
Preparing a Speech
Who are your listeners?
As a speaker you are also required to quite a large extent to be a psychologist. Before writing out your speech in detail, consider the nature of your audience carefully. Will you be speaking to parents, school children, experts or family and relations? You will also need to take into consideration the age, gender, group membership and any possible opinion leaders among your listeners.
Agreement and Opposition
You should always take into account the possibilty of opposition to what you have to say and to take it on board as a perfectly normal occurrence. Look at your speech through the eyes of a person with a sceptical or pedantic attitude. You will then be well prepared and able to deal with critical questioning. Handle support and applause with easy confidence. Do not bask in it for too long! Your audience will show its appreciation of your modesty later on and at other opportunities.
What needs to be clarified in advance | What are you going to talk about?
| | To what goal or understanding are you leading your audience?
| | How must you deal with the subject matter in order to achieve this? |
The SQRR Method (according to Hans Jung) can be a great help:
S (S = survey):
Provide yourself with an overview of the subject you are going to talk about.
Q (Q = question):
Ask yourself the following questions :
What am I going to talk about? What is the aim? How can I achieve it?
R (R = read):
Read and examine all the available sources
R (R = recite):
Examine critically each section of your speech. Ask yourself the following wh-questions as you do so:Who, What, With What, How and When?
R (R = review):
Go over the speech again, final check.
Collecting material for your speech
There is no easy answer to this. You will certainly improve you speech and your performance considerably by concerning yourself with the subject and turning it over in your mind well in advance. Do not concentrate too strictly on a single aspect, but allow yourself to collect a comprehensive assortment of material from which you can later make your selection. Quotes from literature, scientific or religious writings can make a point effectively if they are used "in passing", as an aside. When collecting material, the following can prove useful: Newspaper articles and information in the press
Current examples taken from the everyday lives of your listeners
Information from other media sources
The Classic Structure of a Speech
Classical rhetoric divides the preparatory and performance phases of making a speech in the following way:
1.Inventio - Invention
This phase is concerned with discovering and gathering thoughts and considerations which fit the subject you have chosen. In modern language – brainstorming – collecting ideas ‘off the top of your head’. Finding the answers to the following key questions can help you to do this: | Who?
| | What?
| | Where?
| | With what? / What with?
| | Why?
| | How?
| | When? |
and to provide initial clarification.
2. Dispositio - Disposition
In this structuring phase, thoughts are selected from the material that has been collected (in the invention phase). The speaker can choose from three forms of presentation: | Docere/tutorial: that means, the speaker can or will teach and argue in an educative way
| | Delectare/delightful: that means, the speaker can or will amuse his/her audience and appeal to their emotions through the aesthetical charm of his speech and arguments
| | Movere/moving: that means, the speaker can or will move, unsettle or shake up his audience, so that they listen favourably to his arguments |
3.Conclusio - Conclusion
The speech is drawn to a close and the arguments brought to their conclusion. The audience is addressed once more directly.
Translation: Michèle Lester.
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