Speaking in public when you do not have English mother tongue

This week I have been coaching a Spanish national who has been working in the UK for ten years. This is the first time her colleagues have been brave enough to tell her that they have real difficulty when she is presenting reports and that she could benefit from voice coaching.

She is a lovely person and we are having great fun with all the tongue twisters and poetry readings! Foreign nationals really do struggle when it comes to speaking in public as part of ther job. The tongue is often used in a different way and the stress patterns and intonation are nowhere near the rise and fall of English. In the case of Spanish speakers they tend to speak faster and flatter, this makes it very hard for the listener to pick up on any key words. With my client we have been working on selecting and stressing key words and phrases to bring out the meaning. We have also been working on the consonants such as t,d,l,n,r,s,&z as these are particualrly difficult. An example of the kind of phrase she has difficulty with is: “Soft, silent, timelessly slow. Silvery moon shine on descending snow.” or “Such shouted anticipation”

I have got my client to poke her tongue out and touch her nose to give it more flexibility (this should be done in a private place - obviously!)

When working on pitch we have looked at ways to bring more variety and reading poems helps this process. She has enjoyed learning the music and rhythm of the language.

Any foreign national working in the UK can benefit from voice coaching as they have similar fears when confronted with large audiences and even more difficulties to overcome. It needn’t be boring - we have had great fun!

Jackie Arnold

Voice Coach

Well - up to now I always said I couldn’t speak in public but..perhaps I can!

I had an interesting client this week who was very adament he could not speak in public. “I always dry up, I always feel nervous and I know I will always fail.”

So I asked him if he had ever spoken in public and he said yes but it was always a total disaster. “Oh so when I heard you the other day chairing your meeting you felt that was a total disaster did you?”

“Well no” he replied “I am quite used to speaking at meetings and I know what I need to say. I have no trouble in speaking to people at work as I am used to it”

Often when people tell me that they are afraid of speaking in public I challenge them on the “I always dry up” and “I always fail” as we are all speaking in public every day in one way or another. If you make a telephone call in a crowded office where others are listening, if you make a complaint in a restaurant when there is a mistake on the bill or if you give a report at a meeting in front of your peers or your manager. These are all ways in which you speak in public. Yes, of course this is not the same as speaking to an audience, but “always” and “can’t” can be changed to “sometimes” and “perhaps I can” when we talk about giving a speech. This immediately sends another message to our subconscious - it frees the mind into thinking that there may be a way to beat this fear after all!

My client who felt that speaking in public was always a disaster realised that actually he was speaking very often in public with no nerves at all. So what did he do that was successful and how could he repeat this when facing a larger audience? He began by noticing that he was quite successful when speaking at meetings. He spoke clearly and gave everyone excellent eye contact. He interacted with those around him and the meetings were positive and energising. Looking at all these points was very encouraging for him and it was a basis to work on for the event in the future where he would be expected to speak to a couple of hundred people. Duing this process he went from feeling a failure at speaking to feeling that, ok maybe there was hope for him yet - I’ll keep you posted.

Jackie Arnold

Voice Coach