Assignment 20: Sofi Tzouanakis

I speak a lot in front of groups of people, whether they be small board room meetings or large-scale conference rooms in hotels, so I feel like I have a decent grasp of the concept of public speaking (for my age). So today, I'd like to tell you how to be a passable public speaker!

You're a teenager; adults like anything that comes out of your mouth. Literally, sometimes I feel like I could say the absolute most obscene thing while speaking, and adults will still come back up to me afterward and fawn over it. I think it's because adults expect teenagers to just be hooligans and do stupid things, so they set their expectations for teenagers really low. When a teen actually does something halfway decent with their time, they're already impressed. So really, just think: if you make what you say at least mediocre, they're going to LOVE you.

Speak loudly. I've never had a problem with this (lol), but I know a lot of kids have trouble speaking up while others are watching. A tip I give for kids like this is look at the person the farthest away from you in the room and pretend you're speaking to them. That's how loud your voice needs to be, the whole time. Also, if you have to turn away from your audience and can't possibly talk any louder than you're already talking, just wait until you've turned back to speak. I've seen a lot of kids just keep talking when their mouth is turned the other way. We can't hear you!!!!

Don't script it. Trust me, remembering every line is much harder than just knowing the information and going with the flow (except if you're presenting a speech). It will also sound forced and terrible and like you were just staying up all night trying to memorize every "the" and "a" in your presentation... and that's because you probably were. When something goes awry, it's much easier to hop back if you haven't itinerized your whole time on stage.

That's about all! Now you might go from "slide-reader" to "slide-checker"! Just kidding (sort of).