1. Never greet individuals within the audience. If possible, avoid greeting your audience at all. Trust us, it's not rude, it's just anticlimactic. Your greatest weapon as a speaker is that before you get up there, no-one has any clue what your going to say. There's anticipation for you to speak: you have their attention. There is nothing that will make that attention disappear quicker than you saying something they have heard a thousand times before. Like: "good morning" or worse yet "good morning judges, chairperson, parents..." because to be honest, that just sounds like sucking up. Have confidence in yourself. You don't need to try and earn their approval within the first 10 seconds, your knowledge will do that by the end of the speech. Instead start with something that will make them want to listen carefully. For instance "you'll want to listen carefully, because I won't say this again" now that's a fun start

2. Be aware of your habits. By this we mean your nervous ticks. We all have them, for some its obsessively tucking hair behind their ear, for others its tapping their foot. But for most, its swaying. Record yourself delivering your speech to a few friends before hand and notice your habits. If you sway, position your feet one in front of the other so you won't, if you tap your feet do the same so you'll lose your balance if you start tapping. Otherwise you're going to be distracting your audience from your words, and instead have them worrying that you're nervous.

3. If you're not having fun, they aren't either. Public Speaking is only a chore if you see it that way. Afterall, you can put off writing your speech and then jot down three dot points on some random topic only to deliver it in a monotone voice, purely to have it over and done with: but you've just made life harder for yourself. You're going to have to do the speech, so why not make it fun? Spice up your manner and work out a good introduction that hooks both you and your audience into the speech. Your goal is to try and get an idea across to your audience, and you can't do that by boring both parties to death.

4. Always number your palm cards. Preferably chronologically. We can guarantee that if you don't number your palm cards you will drop them. It's just the law of the universe. So please, number your palm cards.

5.Your wellbeing is the most important thing. If you're stressing about your speech and staying up at night fretting over details you need to talk to an adult. Whether it's working out an alternative solution with your teacher (either pushing your speech back or saying it in a more comfortable environment) or talking to your adult about your anxiety: you come first. If taking care of yourself and your wellbeing means not making eye contact with the audience or saying your speech only to your teacher that's ok. Public speaking can be crazy scary at times, and we get that. If you need more time, or just a complete time out from public speaking that's completely ok.

6. If you've heard it before, don't say it again. Here's the thing: it's way easier to parrot something that you've heard on the news rather then come up with original content. We've all done it, whether it's casually dropping a headline into conversation or saying a joke you heard someone say on tv the other day. It's great to get inspiration from stuff like that, but if you don't make the speech your own, why should you give it? You may as well get up there and start reciting the url to the site you read the story on. The magic of speech giving is how different every speech can be even if they were inspired by the same thing. Don't sell yourself short, you don't need to say something polished to say something that's worth hearing. 

7. A High Five is better than a Death Stare. It doesn't matter how good you are or how badly you want to win, the victory won't be as sweet if you don't have someone to celebrate with. By that we mean, be nice to your fellow speakers. You're in this together and if some unkind word or misinformation on your part put them at a disadvantage you're degrading yourself as a speaker. Sure, speaking can be a competition, but if you only see it as that you shouldn't be competing. 

8. If you're doing it for the wrong reasons, don't do it at all. It's super easy to fall into the trap of people pleasing when it comes to public speaking. Especially at a competitive level, its stops being "what do I want to talk about" and starts to sound something like "what do the judges want to hear that they haven't heard before that would make them like me enough to give me a big shiny medal". As much as we love big shiny medals, that's not what public speaking is about. It's far better to give a speech that you want to give than to force yourself to sound like a newspaper for 5 minutes.

9. Improvement isn't always safe. With stuff like math and science it's really easy to track your improvement and its always straight forward. You couldn't do cross multiplication, now you can. Great! Public Speaking isn't like that. It's very opinion based and emotional. We bet you haven't offended someone by calculating the circumference of a circle, but if you discuss the issue of woke culture, chances are you will. The better you get at public speaking, the more experimental you'll become which means the reactions to your speeches will vary. Improving means making mistakes and learning stuff the hard way, the most important part is that you don't let that discourage you.

10. Make the most of your platform. We know that public speaking doesn't always seem like an amazing opportunity. Usually it comes across as a cruel form of torture or some obligatory task that you just want to finish already.  But every time you're given the opportunity to speak, you've been given an opportunity that very few children are ever given. You have the opportunity to share your perspective with your peers and learn from your self and others.  So instead of dreading discussing the merits of plastic recycling in front of the class, use your platform to the best of your ability. Make your speech fun and exciting, otherwise your wasting both your time and your audience's.





That's it!

We're done!

Here's a certificate to prove you made it this far if you'd like to rub it in someone's face in the near future





 



It feels a bit incomplete though, doesn't it? Sure you've grown your voice, but there's so much more to learn and do and see. But all that learning can't be put into a program. You've got to experience it for yourself. Be brave and put yourself out there. Seek new experiences in public speaking and surround yourself with people who will continue to help you grow. Your journey with public speaking has just started and it's completely up to you which road you travel.


Thank you for sticking with us, good luck and good skill!