Speaking Skills Training

Go here to see the main website.

Australia Wide: Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide.

The use of speech is a cornerstone of human social interaction. A collection of sounds made by our voices when they are heard by a receiver can be taken to mean something. Its effectiveness is valued from individual interaction among peers to large speaking events where one, two, or more people converse with hundreds of people, or thousands of them, is often high regarded and even prized. They are often considered valuable resource persons in business because they can communicate information and motivate their audience to act on what they have to say.

It takes a lot to speak, whether you are speaking in small groups or in front of a large audience. It requires maintaining a calm demeanour, a steady stream of thought and the ability to find the right words to express your thoughts. All this is on top of having a pleasant, or at least a neutral voice, and adapting what and how one says it depending on the context.

It is easy to see why people struggle to communicate with larger groups than they can handle. It is possible to learn speaking skills, which is not impossible. Paramount Training and Development recognizes the need to train employees who want to improve their speaking skills through our Speaking Skills Training program.

It is difficult to speak in any capacity. It is difficult to master all three elements of speech. They must also be flexible and able to engage their audience with different methods. These and many other factors were taken into consideration when Paramount Training and Development developed the Speaker Skills Training course. Thankfully, these techniques have been refined to ensure that those who take it will be more effective in speaking than they were when they began.

Speaking Skills Training Outline

Master the core fundamentals of speaking

As was stated before, the art of speaking is a delicate balance of composure, retention, and the grasp of one’s language. One must go to great lengths to ensure the presence of all three elements as having the latter two but not the former can make your speech less impactful and therefore less meaningful; having composure, language, but not retention basically eliminates the entire point of the exercise, and having the former two and not the latter risks saying the wrong thing and making mistakes. Speaking Skills trainees are taught how to master these elements first and foremost, as they form the backbone of all speaking engagements.

Identify and properly utilise different speaking styles

There are numerous speaking styles available to the would-be speaker; some where they’re put on the spot with absolutely no preparation and must engage their peers or audience in a direct fashion, others where speakers are allowed some time to prepare themselves before the face the metaphorical music, and of course those where you can create a long-winded and decent script for the job. In Speaking Skills Training, learners are taught these speaking styles and effective strategies that will bolster their flexibility in the art of speaking.

Adapt to suit their audience

It’s a thing that is hardly noticed by most, but we change our ‘language’ depending on our audience. Most people know how to do it although few if any are actually aware when they do. The ‘language’ one uses when speaking to a baby is different to the ‘language’ one uses to speak with their superior. By the end of their training, learners undertaking Speaker Skills Training will not only recognize the different ‘language’ used for both parties, but also how they are different, and why they must be different, and then how to apply incorporate these differences in future speaking activities.

Recognise and appreciate body language and its role in speaking

Body language, despite being more easily seen than the spoken word, is actually much more subtle than the language of words. In more personal and intimate conversations one’s body language can convey many things from levels of engagement (from intently listening to completely disengaged), honesty in their statements, confidence, how easily then can be persuaded, and so on. The task of identifying these gestures and interpreting their correct meaning(s) is a difficult task and one that may take a long time to master. Learners undertaking Speaker Skills Training are however, given lessons and methodologies to recognize and get a rough meaning of these gestures, and by the end of the program are expected to have the core fundamentals of these lessons and have some proficiency in the identification and interpretation.

Communicate to their audience effectively and engagingly

Beyond the technical and background knowledge to become an effective speaker requires another element that isn’t as concrete as the linguistic or technical aspects; charisma. Using language alone a charismatic personality can hold peoples’ attention to persuade, convince, teach, and inspire others to do things with renewed gusto and passion. As a quality it is rather vague and this intangibility makes it a difficult thing to concretely teach and learn. However there have been many studies conducted by experts in linguistics, psychology, and other related fields that have managed to drill down some of the core elements of charismatic people into elements that are much easier to mimic and learn. Materials and lessons to make learners better at this are made available through our Speaking Skills Training course, and it is hoped that these will be instilled in our learners to make them more effective once their training is complete.