YLS Week Two

Students Seminar week two was a lot of fun as students faced the importance of Vocal Effectiveness and Active Listening.

Presenter Linda Bergman took students through the techniques to master the “PC” of Public Speaking: Pitch, Pace, Pause and Projection along with Content and Connection with the audience. The first connection with your audience is your voice.  To have great vocal effectiveness is not just about your talking but what you need to do to give your voice strength and variety and the tips to bring out your own uniqueness and the X factor to be a wonderful presenter.

Giggles and laughter ensued as YLS students learned how making a growly face tiger and sour lemon puckered lips helps to warm up speech muscles prior to presenting a speech . . . organs of speech need to be warmed up before a performance just the same as any athlete or dancer . . . after all the Royal NZ Ballet wouldn’t dream of performing on stage without warming up their muscles first and the same applies to giving a speech or presentation.

Who’d have thought that “blowing breath” through a straw is a practical exercise for warming up our organs of speech? YLS students were amazed and intrigued to discover that “blowing” through a straw is not as easy as it looks!

The need to have strong vocal cords saw students practise blowing through straws as an exercise to have control of their vocal cords by gentle blowing going up and down the scale2-3 times along with lip trills and creaky door exercises and some tongue twisters to practice good pronunciation, along with the need to have good posture. John Ford said “you can speak well when your tongue can deliver the message in your heart”

ACTIVE LISTENING was also part of the overall YLS seminar with students having to close their eyes and listen to instructions on how to fold and rip a piece of paper: they all received the same instructions yet each piece of paper was very different when unfolded…. The moral of the story is that we all need to have two way communication and to ask questions so that we are all on the same page and not assume . Active listening is not just about hearing but about really listening; most of us are born hearing…but we have to learn to listen.