How To Give A Demonstration SpeechGiving a demonstration speech can be a lot more nerve racking than any other type of speech. Unlike a casual or formal speech, when something goes wrong it often times slows down the entire speech or brings it to a halt, which can be a bone chilling experience filled with anxiety. There are numerous things you should and shouldn’t do while giving a demonstration speech and sticking to the fashion in which you give a casual speech usually ends in a somewhat lackluster performance. With a basic foundation in public speaking, giving a demonstration speech is a piece of cake. The preparation process for giving a demonstration speech is similar to that of a regular presentation. It’s important to spend a great deal of time organizing your thoughts and what exactly you want to say. In order to do this, it’s important to decide on one concrete goal and work towards that through your entire speech. If you choose something such as showing how to use a word processor, then all of your information should be related to the subject and somehow helping someone accomplish the goal of using a word processor. The next step during presentation is practice, a lot. Run through the exact things you are going to be demonstrating over and over again and also take note of where you make mistakes. Making a mistake during a demonstration speech is much more difficult to recover from due to the fact you have to reset your demonstration or fix it. If you don’t take note of where you’re making errors, if and when it does come up during the real thing, you’ll look highly unprofessional having to take a moment to think the problem through. A demonstration speech relies heavily on preparation and practice.
While the actual speech during a demonstration speech is important, it’s much less important than the actual preparation. Some things to remember while giving the speech is to always make sure what you’re doing is clear and also visible to the audience. Often times an audience won’t speak up when then don’t understand or they can’t see, so it becomes your job that they don’t let left out. You can make sure the audience is included either by being incredibly careful on how you operate and visually checking every few minutes, or periodically asking if anyone has a question thus far or is having trouble seeing. Due to the highly visual nature of the speech it’s important that you explain what you’re doing also. Simply performing the task rarely clues the audience in to what you’re actually teaching them and it’s important that you clarify anything you’re doing with a short audio explanation. In a demonstration speech always use the speech as a tool to enhance the demonstration. While simply talking about a subject can seem difficult, often times even the most masterful of presenters have a difficult time with demonstration speeches. A demonstration speech has a whole different set of rules and many of the basic speech and presentation rules no longer apply. When practicing a demonstration speech it’s important to remember that the demonstration and visual part of the presentation is the most important and that the speech portion, while strong, should mostly accent the task which you’re doing for the audience. |