CHAMPION STRATEGIES – PUBLIC SPEAKING WORKSHOP – DECEMBER 12, 2020
The Tell-Me Game
- This exercise is designed to test your speech to see if you use fillers and to identify your favorite filler words and phrases. You will need a partner to be your speech monitor to listen to you. Tell your partner the purpose of the game. His task is to identify and list all fillers as you speak. Set a timer for one minute. Your task is to speak for one minute on this topic: Your business’s products and/or services.
Do not allow yourself any time to think about the topic. Just speak. Speaking impromptu will more closely reproduce your “usual” speech habits. How did you do? Are you a filler user? If you are, there’s work to do to fix your sloppy speech habit. Continue to use the Tell-Me Game to try and cut down on the number of fillers you use in spontaneous speech. Increase the time of the exercise to two minutes.
Have Your Fillers Monitored
As the only way you’re going to eliminate fillers from your speech is through constant diligence, the help of your speech monitor (or monitors) will be invaluable. Once again, explain the speech problem you are working on, and have him tell you every time you commit this speech offense in his presence. If you’re serious about breaking this sloppy speech habit, having one monitor at home and one in your work environment is ideal.
The Benefits of Eliminating Fillers
As was the case with the first sloppy speech habit you tackled, as your speech fillers decrease, your listeners will:
- Form a better impression of you as you speak, thinking of you as an educated, knowledgeable person, more worthy of trust;
- Be better able to focus on the message you’re communicating, rather than being distracted by the way you’re expressing yourself.
Homework Assignment
Your first task this week is simple: use the Tell-Me Game at least once to identify your favorite filler words and phrases. The second task is much harder; work to eliminate the extraneous fillers in your speech. Continue working with a partner and playing the Tell-Me-Game throughout the week. Get your speech monitor or monitors involved to help catch the fillers you use. As you become more conscious of the way you speak and practice speaking without fillers, you’ll find your filler use decrease. Which will give any members of an audience listening to your take a ways and that is as good as it gets.
Make it a champion day!
