Acknowledging the Fear: 

• Encourage Beyond Access students to acknowledge their fears of public speaking.
• During a session, you may wish to help your student brainstorm a list of these fears.
• Help the student to develop a plan for responding to their fears (e.g., fear of dropping their index cards, solution=picking them up)

Practice: 

• Encourage students to prepare their presentation ahead of time:
• Encourage the student to rehearse their speech with you or someone else (e.g., a roommate, a friend).
• Encourage the student to use index cards (if the professor permits using them).  This will help the student to remember segments of their presentation.  Index cards should be reduced to keywords and not full sentences.  They should be used to “jog” the student’s memory during the presentation.
• PowerPoint, posters, objects, and videos are also helpful (if the professor permits using these).

Working on the Presentation: 

“Gimmicks” such as role-plays, skits, poems, and music are also helpful.  Sometimes, they allow students to look forward to different sections of their speech.  These gimmicks may also involve the audience’s participation.

Mind and Body During the Presentation

• Mind: 
  • Encourage the student to think positively.  Discourage the student to engage in sabotaging self-talk.
  • Instruct the student to not compare themselves to a classmate and to not put themselves down.  “It seems in life there is always someone you would like to be like, but there is someone saying the same thing wishing they could be like you!”
  • Just a speech, so many other things important in life.
• Body:
  • Breathing during the presentation: Breathe with the diaphragm.  This means breathing in with your belly and breathing out with your belly in.
    Encourage the student to move during presentation.  Movement helps breathing and the most logical times to move are during the transitions of a speech.
  • Dress for success (e.g., wearing your favorite clothes, wearing a dress or nice pair of pants, etc.).  Wear comfortable clothing and shoes.

Audience Participation: 

• Encouraging the audience to close their eyes and imagine something from your presentation.
• Asking if the audience has any questions during the presentation.
• Using a participant from the audience during part of the presentation.

General 

• Help the student set realistic goals such as reducing public speaking anxiety instead of completely eliminating it.  Consult the student’s Beyond Access goals.
• If applicable, encourage the student to pick a topic that they are knowledgeable about, familiar with, or are genuinely interested in.
• Instruct the student to take a few minutes to look over their notes, take a deep breath, and then begin.

Support Sources: 

• Consulting or talking to a professor, friend, another student in the class.
• Make an appointment with SHaW Mental Health Services.

Conclusion – Students should: 

• Know their topic.
• Know their audience.
• Know themselves and how they respond to stress.
• Know their speech.
• Focus on the message of the presentation, not themselves.
• Recognize their value and uniqueness.

Adapted From:
http://www.roch.edu/dept/spchcom/anxiety_handout.htm

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