Managing Your Body

When giving a speech, how you carry yourself is almost as important as what you say.  What you say will not hold any relevance or capture anyone's attention if they are distracted by other aspects of what they are looking at.  Your appearance should both take into account the occasion and your own personality.  When giving a speech you should be speaking in such a manner as though you were having a conversation with the audience.  In doing such, you should be making eye contact and other gestures that include them.  Thoroughly practicing your speech will give you more confidence and allow you to do this better as it is a natural reaction to look up when you are trying to remember something.  Your facial expressions are one of the biggest things that will convey your own personal emotion about the subject.  Even if the audience does not hear your words, based on your facial expressions they should know if you are saying something funny, serious, exciting, or sad.  Correctly moving your body to coincide with your speech will be most perfected through practice and timing.  Matching gestures to speech content will help with the flow as you are giving your speech.  Keeping these things in mind will help drawn your audience in and help you be more comfortable as you give your speech.