Articles tagged: gestures

By now, you know that you should be complementing your speech with gestures.

But do you know how big these gestures should be?

In this article, you’ll learn to match the size of your gestures to your audience and venue.

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Is your body dead when you speak, or does your constant motion give your audience headaches?

Does your face signal fear or does it signal excitement for your topic?

Do your hands vibrate, or do they punctuate your words?

The fifth Toastmasters speech project encourages you to make every body movement enhance your speech rather than detract from it. This article of the Toastmasters Speech Series examines the primary goals of this project, provides tips and techniques, and links to numerous sample speeches.

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Your speech preparation is going well. You started with your core message, wrapped it in a speech outline, extracted your first draft, edited your speech, and added impact with rhetorical devices. You’re ready to deliver, right?

Wrong. You only have words on paper, and your audience doesn’t want to read your speech.

Your audience wants to see and hear your presentation. You will dazzle them by complementing your speech with staging, gestures, and vocal variety.

This article shows you how.

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J.A. Gamache demonstrates how to complement strong writing with powerful body language in a speech titled “Being a Mr. G.” that took first place in the 2007 Region VI Toastmasters speech contest.

This video critique analyzes many noteworthy elements of the presentation, including:

• a memorable speech opening and closing which feature the same prop;
• the callback technique for repetitive humor;
• emotionally charged writing; and
• a series of wonderfully choreographed gestures.

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