The document outlines a five-step formula for impromptu speaking: listen without interrupting, pause to formulate a response, confirm the question was understood correctly, tell your response with enthusiasm, and conclude with your main point. It recommends selecting a speaking strategy like expressing an opinion, breaking up the topic, or discussing the past, present and future. The document also notes what not to do, like apologizing or rambling, and explains how impromptu speaking skills can be applied to table topics discussions.
2. WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT TODAY .....
Five-step formula.
1. Listen
2. Pause
3. Confirm
4. Tell
5. End
Select a speaking strategy
What not to do
Impromptu speaking meets table topics
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3. FIVE-STEP FORMULA: 1. LISTEN
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Don’t interject your own ideas before the other person has
finished. Instead, focus on what is being said.
Respect Reuse On-target response
4. FIVE-STEP FORMULA: 2. PAUSE
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Refresh your thoughts
Time to formulate an answers
Add drama
7. FIVE-STEP FORMULA: 5. END
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Know when to stop.
Conclude with your main point, smile.
8. 3 SPEAKING STRATEGIES
Current events
Have opinions about those events
Be interested
You cant prepare for
Impromptu speaking
GET A STRATEGY or two …
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9. 3 SPEAKING STRATEGIES - EXPRESS AN OPINION
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State an opinion, then justify it with a supporting
statement.
Offer reasons, why you agree or disagree.
10. 3 SPEAKING STRATEGIES - BREAK UP THE TOPIC
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Discuss the components of your topic
What are the impacts or parts?
11. 3 SPEAKING STRATEGIES - PAST, PRESENT AND
FUTURE
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Use a timeline
Pick your one state of time
12. WHAT NOT TO DO IN IMPROMPTU SPEAKING
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Don’t apologize
Don’t ramble
Don’t invent
….. Be confident, brief
and sincere ……
13. LET’S RETURN TO THE PURPOSE OF TABLE TOPICS.
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Think on your feet
Develop a short speech in moments
Deliver every message with energy
14. EIGHT WAYS TO USE TABLE TOPICS
PRODUCTIVELY
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1. No judgments
2. Fake it until you make it
3. Build your knowledge base
4. Use the topic as a basis for a mini-speech
5. Connect with the audience
6. Emphasize your physical presentation
7. Every topic is for you !
8. Have fun
15. IN CONCLUSION
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Five-step formula.
Select a speaking strategy
What no to do
Using our new skills in table topics
Let’s practice !
Gestures:yourbodyspeaks
Notas do Editor
People encounter impromptu speaking situations every day. An impromptu speech can take
the form of a job interview, a telephone conversation, or a chat with customer service people or co-workers. With enough practice, anyone can develop the ability to present ideas clearly in any impromptu speaking situation
Five step formula
It is possible to be prepared and confident even if we cannot anticipate a question’s content. Use
this formula for a successful impromptu speech
Select a speaking strategy
There are four common strategies speakers can use to maintain enthusiasm and focus during an
impromptu presentation
Three points for success
Listen
A good response is dependent on an attentive attitude and careful listening can provide part
of your response. If you agree, your reply will reflect your attention by reinforcing the other
person’s words. If you disagree, you can tactfully amend or correct the original statement.
Sharpen your powers of concentration to become an effective speaker.
Don’t interject your own ideas before the other person has finished. Instead, focus on what is
being said.
Consider the following scenario. You’re attending a dinner party at the home of a business associate. Someone begins to discuss the current state of the nation’s economy comparing it to your company’s recent annual report.
Suddenly all eyes are focused on you, waiting for your response.
By listening carefully, you have already formulated the first portion of your response. If you
agree, you might say something like “What a startling comparison, Bob! As a matter of fact, I
think you’re right on target.” If you disagree, you might say something like “Although I admit
that your concept is interesting, Bob, I have to disagree. The XYZ company has always operated in the black. You can’t say that about our government!”
The advantages are:
Respect. People are more likely to listen to your ideas when you listen to them.
Reuse dialogue. You’ll be able to incorporate some of what you’ve heard into
your reply.
On-target responses. Careful listening improves your chances of commenting directly on
what you’ve heard.
Pausing before you speak allows you to refresh your thoughts and formulate an answer.
The pause can:
1. Simply be a few seconds of contemplation allowing you to organize your thoughts.
2. Give time to smile, nod, or otherwise indicate that you’ve heard the question.
A pause can add drama, allow the audience to absorb your message, or give them the opportunity to respond to humor. A silent pause is preferable to using verbal placeholders.
The silent pause is always preferable to using verbal place holders such as “um,” “ah,” and
“y’know.”
Let the silence do the heavy lifting
We learned last time that pausing can give us extra time to organize our thoughts. Confirming the question will help us prepare a response. Repeating the question out loud gives the brain cells a better opportunity to absorb the concept ... providing a clearer idea of how to respond.
Don’t discount the possibility that you may have misunderstood the question. If this is the case, repeating what you’ve just heard will help to verify the topic.
Dazzle everyone with your reply. As you express your thoughts, opinions, or ideas, remember to stay focused. In fact, your challenge is to tell only the essentials while sounding as if you know a lot more than you’re telling.
This can be the most difficult part of your impromptu talk. Many speakers find themselves so
energized at this point that they are ready to discuss their topic from A to Z. That’s why it’s
important to End
Have you ever been held hostage by someone who simply cannot stop talking?
Once you’ve said what you want to say, don’t belabor the point. Bring your comments to a close.
Emphasize your main point, smile while making that final audience eye contact, then sit down!
Today, we’ll look at strategies for successful impromptu speaking.
Ideas for selecting a strategy:
1. Keep up with current events
2. Form opinions about those events
3. Maintain a lively interest in the world around you
4. Remember that preparing subject material for an impromptu talk is next to
impossible.
5. It is possible to be familiar with a number of speaking strategies that will help you
survive the “tell” aspect of your talk.
Express an opinion.
State an opinion, then justify it with a supporting statement.
1. Use one support item if answering a question.
2. Use two or three if giving a brief speech.
Strategy variation: offer reasons why you agree or disagree with an idea or concept.
Break the topic into components and then discuss each component individually.
You might decide to break the topic into components and discuss them individually. A question asking for a way to reduce crime could then be answered in the following manner:
“Three areas of concern – legal, social, and educational – must be reevaluated in order to lower the crime rates. To begin with, we should encourage stricter laws and punishments for individuals who break those laws...”
Discuss the past, present, and future. Organize your answer in the style of a timeline.
What if your topic involves assessing a situation over a span of time, such as United States
diplomacy regarding the former Soviet Union? Then the strategy of a past / present / future
outline may be applied by organizing the “tell” of your subject in time line fashion.
We’ve been discussing how to handle an impromptu speaking opportunity.
Here are three definite “don’ts.”
Don’t apologize
Don’t ramble
Don’t invent
Let’s look at don’t apologize. Buying time with a pause is fine. Restating the question will help steady your response. However, taking time to apologize or make excuses is downright annoying.
Consider the following. After giving a perfectly good presentation, one speaker ended his speech, and very nearly his career, by informing the audience, “Well, that’s all I know ... sorry I couldn’t find anything more to say ... hope I didn’t bore you.”
Now and then you may be asked to substitute for someone else. Everyone understands the
awkwardness of such a predicament. Once your audience has been informed of the situation, they will be more than willing to “cut you some slack.” But once the fact has been established, don’t return to it again
Don’t Ramble.
When you’re forced to think on your feet, it’s easy to resort to rambling. You repeat old
statements. You add new points. You backtrack. On and on and ...
One of the most logical ways to wrap up a talk is to come full circle and restate your original
points. Be brief. As the Greek philosopher Dionysus once so wisely stated, “Let thy speech be
better than silence – or be silent!”
Don’t Invent.
A skilled impromptu speaker knows that to “bluff” one’s way through a speech or reply is risky at best. Strive for sincerity rather than inventiveness. If you don’t know how to respond, say so. Then indicate your interest by asking a few questions in return. After all, it’s entirely possible that another person may be just as eager to try out their impromptu skills.
Being able to think on your feet is an excellent mental habit to cultivate. Like other good habits, it takes time and effort to establish. Once we understand and practice the basic concepts, we’ll find ourselves more than ready to accept the challenge of impromptu speaking.
Let’s return to the purpose of table topics.
“Please don’t call on me.” How often have you thought this plea or heard it muttered by a fellow club member? Why do we have this inordinate fear of standing up and speaking before a group of friends that is probably the most tolerant audience in the world?
Maybe it’s because we want each and every Table Topics response to be perfect. We want it to be a memorable reply that perfectly (and humorously in most cases) addresses the topic we have been presented.
It isn’t going to happen – at least not every time we get called on. Instead of going for a perfect response we should strive for perfect learning.
Most experienced toastmasters would agree that table topics is a process to help us:
Think on your feet
It improves your ability to access the hard drive of information
contained in your brain. In our life outside toastmasters, the most frequent use of table
topics skills is to respond to questions we are asked. This should help you react
intelligently.
2. Develop a short speech in moments
Instead of just answering the question we are asked, we should use the question or topic
as the foundation for a mini-speech.
3. Deliver every message with energy
Deliver every message with energy. Always try to connect with the audience.
Looking at table topics as an important exercise in improving our communication skills, and
nothing more, will help us use this exercise more productively.
There are seven tools to make table topics more productive.
No judgments
What do we mean by No Judgments? Avoid making judgments about your presentation in
advance. Thinking about how our response will be received as we walk to the front of the room instead of creating a mini-speech is not a productive use of our time. When called on for table topics, just leave the judgments at your seat and use the time to create a brief speech based on the topic you have been presented. Then go up and deliver. You don’t have to be perfect every time you deliver a topic. You just have to learn and grow.
2. No “tee ups” , start with words like ….
This probably won’t be very good.
I haven’t had time to prepare
I don’t know anything about this topic
I’m not good at this
3. Build your knowledge base
Have material to use …. Read, watch TV, store ideas
4. Use the topic as a basis for a mini-speech
5. Connect with the audience
Be confident, be sincere , use eye connect
6. Emphasize your physical presentation
7. Every topic is for you !
8. Have fun
The audience to which you’re speaking is in the
same boat as you. They aren’t likely to sink that boat. The worst thing that can happen is that you don’t win the ribbon for best Table Topic of the day
That’s the purpose of this educational is to help you speaking in every day. This presentation will help you with
the form of a job interview, a telephone conversation, or a chat with customer service people or
co-workers.
Five-step formula
LISTEN - PAUSE CONFIRM TELL END
Select a speaking strategy
OPINION |||| CAUSE & EFFORT ||| BREAK DOWN THE TOPIC |||| PAST , PRESENT , FUTURE
Not to do
BE CONFIDENT ||| BE BRIEF |||| BE SINCERE
Impromptu speaking meets table topics ….
With enough practice, anyone can develop the ability to present ideas clearly in any
impromptu speaking situation.
Homework