How to deal with stage fright
Do you ever feel nervous before speaking in public? Of course by the virtue of our profession we have to do it every day, but still I've met many excellent teachers who are extremely reluctant to speak at a conference or address an audience outside their classroom. I remember a couple of years ago at a conference in Murmansk a wonderful teacher who had taken part in an experiment to improve the quality of textbooks and who had done an excellent job, got so nervous just before she was to speak, that her blood pressure level rose dramatically and she had to stop in mid-sentence and go and take her medicine. I called her in the end of the day just to make sure she had got home safely and did not need any help, and she was upset that she had not made her speech as intended.
So why do we fail to speak in public sometimes? The reason is simple, it is called "stage fright". Speaking in class is different from speaking to general public or a professional audience because in these cases we are outside our habitual environment.
Although I give lectures and workshops in many different regions to lots of teachers, I get stage fright as well. So let me share some ways of overcoming it, perhaps you will find some of them useful.
First of all, you can never know if you will go down with the audience well. This idea makes many people extremely worried, although, in fact, the solution is quite simple. Any audience is there to listen to something new. Therefore if when you only begin your lecture/presentation/speech ask the people what they know what what they feel will be interesting for them to hear, it will help you a lot. In this way you'll be able to make your information relevant for the audience and ensure that people listen to you. In this way there is no need to fear that you will not be interesting to the audience.
Which brings up another point. Sometimes, no matter how interesting the speech is, it becomes boring very quickly. The reason, again, is simple: the speech is too quiet and monotonous. If you cannot speek loudly, why not come closer to the people? And intonations should not be too "academic": after all, the whole thing is about people enjoying listening to you, not about you enjoying speaking. I've heard several very clever and interesting people who, when they address an audience, immediately "put on an academic hat" and begin speaking as if they were addressing students, and not very clever students at that. They tend to forget that they are talking to professionals who can either help them by sharing their own experience, answering questions, agreeing or disagreeing with the speaker, but it will be a lively talk. Hardly anyone needs lecturing these days, but a conversation always works. Your lecture is worth only as much as how interesting it is for the people and how easy it is to hear you. So there i sno need to fear that you will lose the audience in the middle of your speech.
Some speakers get stage fright because they feel that they are not experienced enough or they don't feel that what they have to say has much value for the audience. Again, we have two simple solutions fo rthis problem. Solution 1: if you feel that you don't know what to say on this topic, choose another topic where you do know what to say. Solution 2: if you are sharing your own experience, it is always interesting. Just remember that your experience and ideas are worth no less than someone else's, and no one can tell about your experience better than you. I remember one of the times when I was working as an interpreter at a big economic forum. Most of th eforum perticipants were governors from different regions of Russia, including the mayor of moscow and I needed to translate what was being said to a British millionnaire and then translate his speech to the entire audience. Although this was by far not my first experience of simultaneous translation at important events, for some reason I felt nervous before going on the stage. But then I said to myself that although it's very likely that there are people in the hall who speak excellent English, I am still a professional interpreter and no one among those present would be able to do my job better than myself. To remind myself of my qualification was enough to drive away the stage fright.
Also, some of us have a fear that something will go wrong with the technical equipment, that the computer won't start, or the data projector will break down or there will be no sound from the speakers. Well, such things do happen. Therefore it is always a good idea to have some alternative variants of delivering a presentation. You can print out the handouts, you can ask the public to share their ideas and experience, you can do all sorts of content-related activities that we do in our classrooms every day. If you are prepared to be flexible, you needn't fear failures of technical equipment.
And finally, some people are afraid of not being able to answer some of the questions at once. In fact, there is nothing wrong with not knowing answers to each and every questions. Some questions do not have an answer. The answer to some questions is the short and simple "no". And when someone asks a question which you cannot even understand there is nothing wrong with asking this person to paraphrase the question, with asking experienced teachers among the audience if they have ever encountered similar problems and how they deal with them. You'll be surprised to see how many solutions will be offered immediately, and there is really no need to be afriad of questions because there are always many people around who want to help you.
These are just a few simple things, but I hope that they will help you to deal with stage fright if ever you get any.
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