What Is Public Speaking?

Public speaking is a form of speaking to a group of people in an informative, influential manner. A public speaker should target the expectations and motivations of the audience and clearly state the main purpose of speech. The purpose of public speaking can include but not limited to simply informing, to motivating people to garher together, to simply telling stories and to entertaining the audience. Good speakers should drag the audience into the speech by changing the emotions and view of the target group. In order to be able to drag the group from the beginning to the end of the speech, the speaker should be into the speech, creating spontaneous ideas and tools to attract the attention of the audience. The tools and ideas of a good speech should be changed regarding to the type of the speech. The speech can be motivational, related to leadership/personal development, business, customer services, large group communication, and mass communication.

History

Public speaking dates back to Ancient Greek. The researchers have shown that human being has always urged to communicate to the mass groups, in order to pass the political and social issues. In the Ancient Greek, public speaking was a professional occupation and the speakers talked on behalf of their clients who wanted to succeed in politics, in court or in social life such as ceremonial and religious expression, discussing the daily life events. The public speaking was an art for the people of ancient world since it was the only way influencing people and addressing the political and social views. Therefore, the training of a public speaker was very important. Their success and the influence of the people are still very effective and the speakers like Aristotle, Quintilian and Cicero have been still studied. Up to date, the scientific techniques of the public speaking have been well-structured and effective speakers such as Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama have spent most of their career to advance their public speaking skills.

Training

As it was mentioned before the techniques used to train effective public speakers are well-established and there are accredited organizations for public speaker training. The main aim of the training is creating a confident speaker building natural gestures, and voice tones. The vocabulary, humor, speech notes and developing an interactive relationship with the audience are taught in these schools. These schools also provide media tools like video, and DVD for training. Nowadays, these services make the public speakers education very reachable and convenient. The statistical records show that people, who attend trainings or request the media tools, are writers, politicians, entertainers and sports icons. Surprisingly, scientists and academics are less open to public speeches and meetings. They teach and train their students and peers in classrooms but the difference between public speeches and the classroom speeches is the audience. The audience, frequently students, is focused on the topic to learn and understand. In academic speaking, the speaker is only obligated to cover the material in a certain time whereas the public speakers have to impose their topic and idea keeping the audience actively attended. Sometimes, the classroom communication changes the form, the computer to student communication, where the method used is not verbal anymore. At this point, the communication would be classified into different subgroups such as organizational communication, mutual communication, media communication and public communication. However, the public communication (i.e., public speaker) is unique in the aspect of providing information to the different interest groups and changing the mood and emotions of the audience.