Teaching speaking skills
This article is written for teachers with large classes of students who have encountered some of the following or similar problems during speaking activities in their classroom. Why should we teach speaking skills in the classroom? Motivation Speaking is fundamental to human communication Dealing with the arguments against teaching speaking skills Student's won't talk or say anything When students work in pairs or groups they just end up chatting in their own language When all the students speak together it gets too noisy and out of hand and I lose control of the classroom Conclusion References Why should we teach speaking skills in the classroom? Motivation Many students equate being able to speak a language as knowing the language and therefore view learning the language as learning how to speak the language, or as Nunan (1991) wrote, "success is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the (target) language." Therefore, if students do not learn how to speak or do not get any opportunity to speak in the language classroom they may soon get de-motivated and lose interest in learning. On the other hand, if the right activities are taught in the right way, speaking in class can be a lot of fun, raising general learner motivation and making the English language classroom a fun and dynamic place to be. Speaking is fundamental to human communication Just think of all the different conversations you have in one day and compare that with how much written communication you do in one day. Which do you do more of? In our daily lives most of us speak more than we write, yet many English teachers still spend the majority of class time on reading and writing practice almost ignoring speaking and listening skills. Do you think this is a good balance? If the goal of your language course is truly to enable your students to communicate in English, then speaking skills should be taught and practised in the language classroom. Dealing with common arguments against teaching speaking skills in the classroom Students won't talk or say anything One way to tackle this problem is to find the root of the problem and start from there. If the problem is cultural, that is in your culture it is unusual for students to talk out loud in class, or if students feel really shy about talking in front of other students then one way to go about breaking this cultural barrier is to create and establish your own classroom culture where speaking out loud in English is the norm. One way to do this is to distinguish your classroom from other classrooms in your school by arranging the classroom desks differently, in groups instead of lines etc. or by decorating the walls in English language and culture posters. From day one teach your students classroom language and keep on teaching it and encourage your students to ask for things and to ask questions in English. Giving positive feedback also helps to encourage and relax shy students to speak more. Another way to get students motivated to speak more is to allocate a percentage of their final grade to speaking skills and let the students know they are being assessed continually on their speaking practice in class throughout the term. A completely different reason for student silence may simply be that the class activities are boring or are pitched at the wrong level. Very often our interesting communicative speaking activities are not quite as interesting or as communicative as we think they are and all the students are really required to do is answer 'yes' or 'no' which they do quickly and then just sit in silence or worse talking noisily in their L1. So maybe you need to take a closer look at the type of speaking activities you are using and see if they really capture student interest and create a real need for communication. Another way to encourage your students to speak in English is simply to speak in English yourself as much as possible in class. If you are shy about speaking in English, how can you expect your students to overcome their fears about speaking English? Don't worry if you are not completely fluent or don't have that elusive perfect native accent, as Swain (1985) wrote "We learn to speak by speaking" and that goes for teachers as well as students. The more you practise the more you will improve your own oral skills as well as help your students improve theirs. When students work in pairs or groups they just end up chatting in their own language. Is the activity or task pitched at the right level for the students? Make sure you give the students all the tools and language they need to be able to complete the task. If the language is pitched too high they may revert to their L1, likewise if the task is too easy they may get bored and revert to their L1. Also, be aware of the fact that some students especially beginners, will often use their L1 as an emotional support at first, translating everything word for word to check they have understood the task before attempting to speak. In the case of these students simply be patient as most likely once their confidence grows in using English their dependence on using their L1 will begin to disappear. Are all the students actively involved and is the activity interesting? If students do not have something to say or do, or don't feel the need to speak, you can be sure it won't be long before they are chatting away in their L1. Was the timing of the activity good? The timing of a speaking activity in a class can be crucial sometimes. How many teachers have discovered that their speaking activity ended up as a continuation of the students break-time gossip conducted in the L1? After break-time, why not try giving students an activity to calm them down and make them focus before attempting speaking activities that involve groups or pair work. Another way to discourage students speaking in their L1 is to walk around the classroom monitoring their participation and giving support and help to students as they need it. If certain students persist in speaking in the L1 then perhaps you should ask them to stay behind after class and speak to them individually and explain to them the importance of speaking English and ask them why they don't feel comfortable speaking in English in the class. Maybe they just need some extra reassurance or they don't like working with certain students or there is some other problem that you can help them to resolve. When all the students speak together it gets too noisy and out of hand and I lose control of the classroom First of all separate the two points a noisy classroom and an out-of-control classroom. A classroom full of students talking and interacting in English, even if it is noisy, is exactly what you want. Maybe you just feel like you are losing control because the class is suddenly student centred and not teacher centred. This is an important issue to consider. Learner-centred classrooms where learners do the talking in groups and learners have to take responsibility for using communicative resources to complete a task are shown to be more conducive to language learning than teacher-centred classes (Long & Richards 1987). Nevertheless, many classrooms all over the world continue to be teacher centred, so the question you have to ask yourself is, how learner centred is my classroom? Losing control of the classroom, on the other hand, is a different issue. Once again walking around and monitoring the students as they are working in groups can help, as you can naturally move over to the part of the classroom where the noise is coming from and calm the rogue students down and focus them back on the task without disrupting the rest of the students who are working well in their groups. If students really get too rowdy then simply change the pace of the class and type of activity to a more controlled task, for example a focus on form or writing task where students have to work in silence individually. Once the students have calmed down you can return to the original or another interactive group activity. Conclusion These are just some of the problems that teachers with large classes face when teaching speaking activities in the classroom. These problems are not new nor are the solutions offered above. Teachers all over the world continue to face the same hurdles, but any teacher who has overcome these difficulties and now has a large class of energetic students talking and working in English in groups together will tell you it is worth all the trial and error and effort at the outset. If you believe in the importance of teaching speaking skills in the classroom but are having difficulties making speaking activities work in your classroom why not contact your local teaching associations or branch of TESOL. Maybe they run workshops for teaching speaking skills, or maybe they can put you in contact with other teachers in similar situations but with more experience teaching speaking skills who will be willing to share their experiences with you.
Tanay Tandan
Listening — Empathy in Action
SUMMARY (repeated from Introduction) Listen first and acknowledge what you hear, even if you don’t agree with it, before expressing your experience or point of view . In order to get more of your conversation partner’s attention in tense situations, pay attention first: listen and give a brief restatement of what you have heard (especially feelings) before you express your own needs or position. The kind of listening recommended here separates acknowledging from approving or agreeing . Acknowledging another person’s thoughts and feelings does not have to mean that youapprove of or agree with that person’s actions or way of experiencing, or that you will do whatever someone asks. By listening and then repeating back in your own words the essence and feeling of what you have just heard, from the speaker’s point of view, you allow the speaker to feel the satisfaction of being understood, (a major human need). Listening responsively is always worthwhile as a way of letting people know that you care about them. Our conversation partners do not automatically know how well we have understood them, and they may not be very good at asking for confirmation. When a conversation is tense or difficult it is even more important to listen first and acknowledge what you hear . Otherwise, your chances of being heard by the other person may be very poor. Listening to others helps others to listen. In learning to better coordinate our life activities with the life activities of others, we would do well to resist two very popular (but terrible) models of communication: arguing a case in court and debating. In courts and debates, each side tries to make its own points and listens to the other side only to tear down the other side’s points. Since the debaters and attorneys rarely have to reach agreement or get anything done together, it doesn’t seem to matter how much ill will their conversational style generates. But most of us are in a very different situation. We probably spend most of our lives trying to arrange agreement and cooperative action, so we need to be concerned about engaging people, not defeating them. In business (and in family life, too) the person we defeat today will probably be the person whose cooperation we need tomorrow! As Marshall Rosenberg reported in his book, Nonviolent Communication , “studies in labor-management negotiations demonstrate that the time required to reach conflict resolution is cut in half when each negotiator agrees, before responding, to repeat what the previous speaker had said.” (my emphasis) When people are upset about something and want to talk about it their capacity to listen is greatly diminished. Trying to get your point across to a person who is trying to express a strong feeling will usually cause the other person to try even harder to get that emotion recognized. On the other hand, once people feel that their messages and feelings have been heard, they start to relax and they have more attention available for listening. For example, in a hospital a nurse might say, after listening to a patient: “I hear that you are very uncomfortable right now, Susan, and you would really like to get out of that bed and move around. But your doctor says your bones won’t heal unless you stay put for another week.” The patient in this example is much more likely to listen to the nurse than if the nurse simply said: “I’m really sorry, Susan, but you have to stay in bed. Your doctor says your bones won’t heal unless you stay put for another week.” What is missing in this second version is any acknowledgment of the patient’spresent experience. The power of simple acknowledging. The practice of responsive listening described here separates acknowledging the thoughts and feelings that a person expresses from approving, agreeing, advising, or persuading.Acknowledging another person’s thoughts and feelings… …still leaves you the option of agreeing or disagreeing with that person’s point of view, actions or way of experiencing. …still leaves you with the option of saying yes or no to a request. …still leaves you with the option of saying more about the matter being discussed. One recurring problem in conflict situations is that many people don’tseparate acknowledging from agreeing. They are joined together in people’s minds, somewhat like a two-boxes-of-soap “package deal” in a supermarket. The effect of this is, let us say, that John feels that any acknowledgment of Fred’s experience implies agreement and approval, therefore John will not acknowledge any of Fred’s experience. Fred tries harder to be heard and John tries harder not to hear. Of course, this is a recipe for stalemate (if not disaster). People want both: to be understood and acknowledged on the one hand, and to be approved and agreed with, on the other. With practice, you can learn to respond first with a simple acknowledgment. As you do this, you may find that, figuratively speaking, you can give your conversation partners half of what they want, even if you can’t give them all of what they want. In many conflict situations that will be a giant step forward. Your conversation partners will also be more likely to acknowledge your position and experience, even if they don’t sympathize with you. This mutual acknowledgment can create an emotional atmosphere in which it is easier to work toward agreement or more gracefully accommodate disagreements. Here are three examples of acknowledgments that do not imply agreement: Counselor to a drug abuse client: “I hear that you are feeling terrible right now and that you really want some drugs. And I want you to know that I’m still concerned this stuff you’re taking is going to kill you.” Mother to seven-year-old: “I know that you want some more cake and ice cream, Jimmy, because it tastes so good, but you’ve already had three pieces and I’m really worried that you’ll get an upset tummy. That’s why I don’t want you to have any more.” Union representative to company owner’s representative: “I understand from your presentation that you see XYZ Company as short of cash, threatened by foreign competition, and not in a position to agree to any wage increases. Now I would like us to explore contract arrangements that would allow my union members to get a wage increase and XYZ Company to advance its organizational goals.” In each case a person’s listening to and acknowledgment of his or her conversation partner’s experience or position increases the chance that the conversation partner will be willing to listen in turn. The examples given above are all a bit long and include a declaration of the listener’s position or decision. In many conversations you may simply want to reassure your conversation partner with a word or two that you have heard and understood whatever they are experiencing. For example, saying, “You sound really happy [or sad] about that,” etc. As you listen to the important people in your life, give very brief summaries of the experiences they are talking about and name the want or feeling that appears to be at the heart of the experience. For example: “So you were really happy about that…” “So you drove all the way over there and they didn’t have the part they promised you on the phone. What a let-down… “Sounds like you wanted a big change in that situation…” “Wow. Your dog got run over. You must be feeling really terrible…” The point here is to empathize, not to advise. If you added to that last statement, “That total SLOB!!! You should sue that person who ran over your dog. People need to pay for their mistakes, etc.”, you would be taking over the conversation and also leading the person away from her or his feelings and toward your own. Other suggestions about listening more responsively: As a general rule, do not just repeat another person’s exact words.Summarize their experience in your own words . But in cases where people actually scream or shout something, sometimes you may want to repeat a few of their exact words in a quiet tone of voice to let them know that you have heard it just as they said it. If the emotion is unclear, make a tentative guess, as in “So it sounds like maybe you were a little unhappy about all that…” The speaker will usually correct your guess if it needs correcting. Listening is an art and there are very few fixed rules. Pay attention to whether the person speaking accepts your summary by saying things such as “yeah!”, “you got it,” “that’s right,” and similar responses. If you can identify with what the other person is experiencing, then in your tone of voice (as you summarize what another person is going through), express a little of the feeling that your conversation partner is expressing. (Emotionally flat summaries feel strange and distant.) Such compassionate listening is a powerful resource for navigating through life, and it also makes significant demands on us as listeners. We may need to learn how to hold our own ground while we restate someone else’s position. That takes practice. We also have to be able to listen to people’s criticisms or complaints without becoming disoriented or totally losing our sense of self worth. That requires cultivating a deeper sense of self worth, which is no small project. In spite of these difficulties, the results of compassion-ate, responsive listening have been so rewarding in my life that I have found it to be worth all the effort required. Real life examples. Here are two brief, true stories about listening. The first is about listening going well and the second is about the heavy price people sometimes pay for not listening in an empathic way. John Gottman describes his discovery that listening really works: “I remember the day I first discovered how Emotion Coaching [the author’s approach to empathic listening] might work with my own daughter, Moriah. She was two at the time and we were on a cross-country flight home after visiting with relatives. Bored, tired, and cranky, Moriah asked me for Zebra, her favorite stuffed animal and comfort object. Unfortunately, we had absentmindedly packed the well-worn critter in a suitcase that was checked at the baggage counter. “I’m sorry, honey, but we can’t get Zebra right now. He’s in the big suitcase in another part of the airplane,” I explained.”I want Zebra,” she whined pitifully. “I know, sweetheart. But Zebra isn’t here. He’s in the baggage compartment under-neath the plane and Daddy can’t get him until we get off the plane. I’m sorry.” “I want Zebra! I want Zebra!” she moaned again. Then she started to cry, twisting in her safety seat and reaching futilely toward a bag on the floor where she’d seen me go for snacks. “I know you want Zebra,” I said, feeling my blood pressure rise. “But he’s not in that bag. He’s not here and I can’t do anything about it. Look, why don’t we read about Ernie,” I said, fumbling for one of her favorite picture books. “Not Ernie!” she wailed, angry now. “I want Zebra. I want him NOW!” By now, I was getting “do something” looks from the passengers, from the airline attendants, from my wife, seated across the aisle. I looked at Moriah’s face, red with anger, and imagined how frustrated she must feel. After all, wasn’t I the guy who could whip up a peanut butter sandwich on demand? Make huge purple dinosaurs appear with the flip of a TV switch? Why was I withholding her favorite toy from her? Didn’t I understand how much she wanted it? I felt bad. Then it dawned on me: I couldn’t get Zebra, but I could offer her the next best thing — a father’s comfort. “You wish you had Zebra now,” I said to her. “Yeah,” she said sadly. “And you’re angry because we can’t get him for you.” “Yeah.” “You wish you could have Zebra right now,” I repeated, as she stared at me, looking rather curious, almost surprised. “Yeah,” she muttered. “I want him now.” “You’re tired now, and smelling Zebra and cuddling with him would feel real good. I wish we had Zebra here so you could hold him. Even better, I wish we could get out of these seats and find a big, soft bed full of all your animals and pillows where we could just lie down.” “Yeah,” she agreed. “We can’t get Zebra because he’s in another part of the airplane,” I said. “That makes you feel frustrated.” “Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “I’m so sorry,” I said, watching the tension leave her face. She rested her head against the back of her safety seat. She continued to complain softly a few more times, but she was growing calmer. Within a few minutes, she was asleep. Although Moriah was just two years old, she clearly knew what she wanted — her Zebra. Once she began to realize that getting it wasn’t possible, she wasn’t interested in my excuses, my arguments, or my diversions. My validation, however, was another matter. Finding out that I understood how she felt seemed to make her feel better. For me, it was a memorable testament to the power of empathy.” Sam Keen describes a friend’s lament about the consequences of not listening deeply: “Long ago and far away, I expected love to be light and easy and without failure. “Before we moved in together, we negotiated a prenuptial agreement. Neither of us had been married before, and we were both involved in our separate careers. So our agreement not to have children suited us both. Until… on the night she announced that her period was late and she was probably pregnant, we both treated the matter as an embarrassing accident with which we would have to deal. Why us? Why now? Without much discussion, we assumed we would do the rational thing — get an abortion. As the time approached, she began to play with hypothetical alternatives, to ask in a plaintive voice with half misty eyes: `Maybe we should keep the baby. Maybe we could get a live-in helper, and it wouldn’t interrupt our lives too much. Maybe I could even quit my job and be a full-time mother for a few years.` ” “Maybe . . .“ To each maybe I answered: “Be realistic. Neither of us is willing to make the sacrifices to raise a child.“ She allowed herself to be convinced, silenced the voice of her irrational hopes and dreams, and terminated the pregnancy. “It has been many years now since our `decision,` and we are still together and busy with our careers and our relationship. Still no children, even though we have recently been trying to get pregnant. I can’t help noticing that she suffers from spells of regret and guilt, and a certain mood of sadness settles over her. At times I know she longs for her missing child and imagines what he or she would be doing now. I reassure her that we did the right thing. But when I see her lingering guilt and pain and her worry that she missed her one chance to become a mother, I feel that I failed an important test of love. Because my mind had been closed to anything that would interrupt my plans for the future, I had listened to her without deep empathy or compassion. I’m no longer sure we made the right decision. I am sure that in refusing to enter into her agony, to share the pain of her ambivalence, I betrayed her.” “I have asked for and, I think, received forgiveness, but there remains a scar that was caused by my insensitivity and self-absorption.”
How to Express Yourself
SUMMARY (repeated from Introduction) Slow down and give your listeners more information about what you are experiencing by using a wide range of “I-statements.” You are likely to get more of your listener’s empathy if you express more of what you are seeing and hearing, feeling, interpreting, wanting, and envisioning. In the pages that follow we will explore each of these aspects of experience and how to express them more clearly. Anytime one person sincerely listens to another, a very creative process is going on in which the listener mentally reconstructs the speaker’s experience. The more facets or dimensions of your experience you share with easy-to-grasp “I statements,” the easier it will be for your conversation partner to reconstruct your experience accurately and understand what you are thinking, feeling and wanting. This is equally worthwhile whether you are trying to solve a problem with someone or trying to express appreciation for them. Expressing yourself this carefully might appear to take longer than your usual quick style of communication. But if you include all the time it takes to unscramble everyday misunderstandings, and to work through the feelings that usually accompany not being understood, expressing yourself more completely can actually take a lot less time. Filling in the missing information. If you observe people in conversation carefully, you will begin to notice that human communication works by leaving many things unsaid and depending on the listener to fill in the missing-but-implied information. For example, a receptionist may say to a counselor, ”Your two o’clock is here ,” a sentence which, on the face of it, makes no sense at all. She means ” Your client who made an appointment for two o’clock has arrived in the waiting room ,” and the counselor knows that. It’s amazing how much of the time this abbreviating and implying process works just fine. But, in situations of change, ambiguity, conflict, or great emotional need, our “shorthand” way of speaking may not work at all for at least three possible reasons. First, our listeners may fill in a completely different set of details than the one we intended. Second, our listeners may not understand the significance of what we are saying (they get only some of the details, so miss the big picture). And finally, without actually intending to mislead anyone, we may leave out important parts of our experience that we find embarrassing or imagine will evoke a hostile reaction. The more serious the consequences of misunderstanding would be, the more we need to both understand our own experience better and help our listeners by giving them a more complete picture of our experience in language that does not attack them. According to various communication researchers, there are five main dimensions of experience that your conversation partners can use to recreate your experience inside their minds. The more elements you provide, the higher the probability that your listener’s re-creation will match your experience. In this Workbook I will refer to these elements or dimensions of experience as “the five messages.” Examples in table format. The example in the table below outlines a five-part way of saying more of what we are experiencing. The shorthand version of the message below would be something like, “Stop that racing!” Here are the details of the five messages that are left out in the shorthand version: (Please read down the columns) The Five Messagesexpress:Example (in a hospital, nurse to young patient): seeing, hearing…1. What are you seeing, hearing or otherwise sensing? (facts only)“John, when I see you racing your wheelchair down the hall… and feeling…2. What emotions are you feeling?…I feel really upset… because I…3. What interpretations, wants, needs, memories or anticipations of yours support those feelings?…because I imagine that you are going to hurt yourself and someone else, too… and now I want…4. What action, information or commitment do you want now?…so I want you to promise me right now that you will slow down… so that…5. What positive results will that action, information or commitment lead to in the future? (no threats)…so that you can get out of here in one piece and I can stop worrying about a collision.” Note: My deep appreciation goes to the work of Marshall Rosenberg for helping me to understand Messages 1 through 4, and to the work of Sharon and Gordon Bower for helping me understand Message 5. For interesting variations on Theme of complete messages, see their books noted below. The Bear in the Woods! In the table that starts below and continues on the next page you will find eight examples of statements that would give your listener a full range of information about your experience. Notice how a person’s feelings can change according to the needs and interpretations they bring to a situation. (Please read across the rows) 1. When I saw/heard…2. I felt…3. because I… (need, want, interpret, associate, etc.)4. and now I want (then I wanted)…5. so that (in order to)… When I saw the bear in the woods with her three cubs……I felt over- joyed!……because I needed a picture of bears for my wildlife class……and I wanted the bear to stand perfectly still…so I could focus my camera. When I saw the bear in the woods with her three cubs……I felt terrified!……because I remembered that bears with cubs are very aggressive……and I wanted to get out of there fast…so that the bear would not pick up my scent. MORE EXAMPLES OF THE FIVE MESSAGES IN ACTION: 1. When I saw/ heard…2. I felt…3. because I…(need, want, interpret, associate, etc.)4. and now I want (then I wanted)…5. so that (in order to)… When I saw the dishes in the sink……I felt happy……because I guessed that you had come back from your trip to Mexico……and I want you to tell me all about the Aztec ruins you saw……so that I can liven up some scenes in the short story I’m writing. When I saw the dishes in the sink……I felt irritated……because I want to start cooking dinner right away……and I want to ask you to help me do the dishes right now……so that dinner will be ready by the time our guests arrive. When I saw the flying saucer on your roof…… felt more excited than I have ever been in my life……because I imagined the saucer people would give you the anti-gravity formula……and I wanted you to promise that you would share it with me……so that we would both get rich and famous. When I saw the grant application in the office mail……I felt delighted……because I think our program is good enough to win a large grant……and I want to ask you to help me with the budget pages……so that we can get the application in before the deadline. When I saw the grant application in the office mail……I felt depressed……because I can’t see clients when I’m filling out forms……and I want you to help me with the budget pages……so that I can keep up my case work over the next three weeks. Exercise for Challenge 3: Exploring the Five Messages. Re-tell the story of some of your conflicts, frustrations and delights using the five-message format. Write one Five Messages statement a day in a journal or notebook. Here are some suggestions for expressing each of the Five Messages more clearly: Message One:Suggestions for expressing more clearly: What are you seeing, hearing or otherwise sensing? (facts only)A. Begin by stating what you actually see or hear rather than how you feel about it or what you think of it. B. Describe specific actions observed, avoid generalizing such as “you always…” or “you never…” C. Be specific about place, time, color, texture, position and how often. D. Describe rather than diagnose. Avoid words that label or judge the actions you observe such as “slimy,” “lousy,” “neurotic,” etc. E. Avoid descriptions of a situation that imply emotions without actually stating them, such as “totally disgusting” and “horrible.” State your feelings explicitly in Message 2 (described next). For example: “When I saw the big coffee stain on the rug…” is easier to hear and understand than “When you ruined my day, as always, with your slimy, stinking, totally disgusting, rotten antics…” Message Two:Suggestions for expressing more clearly: What emotions are you feeling?A. Use specific emotion describers such as “I feel…”: glad, angry, delighted, sad, afraid, resentful, embarrassed, calm, enthusiastic, fearful, manic, depressed, happy, etc. B. Avoid feeling words that imply the action of another person: “I feel.., ignored, manipulated, mistreated, neglected, rejected, dominated, abandoned, used, cheated (etc.)”Notice how these words indirectly blame the listener for the speaker’s emotions. In order to help your listener understand what you are feeling, translate these “implied blame” words into an explicitly named emotion (see Suggestion A, above) and an interpretation or unmet want (Message 3).For example: “I am feeling totally ignored by you” probably means “I am feeling really sad (or angry) because I want you to pay more attention to me, (spend more time with me, etc.)…” Message Three:Suggestions for expressing more clearly: What interpretations, wants, needs, memories or anticipations of yours support those feelings?A. Express the interpretations, wants, hopes, understandings and associations that support your feelings: … because I imagine that… … because I see that as… … because I remember how… … because I take that to mean … instead of … because YOU …(did, said, did not, etc.) B. Under our interpretations there are often unmet wants, hopes and needs. Explore and express the unmet wants that also support your feelings: … because I wanted … … because I would have liked … … because I was hoping that… … because I needed … instead of … because YOU …(did, said, did not, etc.) Message Four:Suggestions for expressing more clearly: What action, information or commitment do you want now?A. Ask for action or information, or for a present commitment to future action or information giving. Since most people cannot produce emotions on request, it is generally not productive to ask a person for an emotion (“I want you to cheer up.” “I want you to be angry about this issue.” Etc.) B. If your want is general, ask for a specific step toward it. Translate .open-ended requests, such as for “consideration, respect, help, understanding, support” etc., into specific action verbs such as please “listen, sit, lift, carry, tell me, hold me,” etc. C. State your want in positive terms: “Please arrive at eight…”rather than “Don’t be late…” D. Include when, where, how. Including the details can help you to avoid big misunderstandings. Message Five:Suggestions for expressing more clearly: What positive results will that action, information or commitment lead to in the future? (no threats)In describing the specific positive results of receiving your request, you allow the other person to become motivated by feeling capable of giving something worthwhile. This prepares the ground for later expressions of appreciation, and points your relationship toward mutual appreciation and the exercise of competence (more enjoyable to live with), rather than guilt, duty, obedience or resentment (much less enjoyable to live with). Exercise for Challenge 3 (continued): Re-tell the story of some of your conflicts, frustrations and delights using the five-message format. Elements of your experience: …expressed as five different “I-messages”: 1. What are you seeing, hearing or otherwise sensing? (the facts without evaluation) (I saw, heard, etc., …) 2. What emotions are you feeling? (I felt…) 3. What interpretations or wants of yours support those feelings? (because I…) 4. What action, information or commitment do you want now. (and now I would like…) 5. What positive results will that action, information or commitment lead to in the future? (so that…) Elements of your experience:…expressed as five different “I-messages”: 1. What are you seeing, hearing or otherwise sensing? (the facts without evaluation)(I saw, heard, etc., …) 2. What emotions are you feeling?(I felt…) 3. What interpretations or wants of yours support those feelings?(because I…) 4. What action, information or commitment do you want now.(and now I would like…) 5. What positive results will that action, information or commitment lead to in the future?(so that…) Elements of your experience:…expressed as five different “I-messages”: 1. What are you seeing, hearing or otherwise sensing? (the facts without evaluation)(I saw, heard, etc., …) 2. What emotions are you feeling?(I felt…) 3. What interpretations or wants of yours support those feelings?(because I…) 4. What action, information or commitment do you want now.(and now I would like…) 5. What positive results will that action, information or commitment lead to in the future?(so that…) Elements of your experience:…expressed as five different “I-messages”: 1. What are you seeing, hearing or otherwise sensing? (the facts without evaluation)(I saw, heard, etc., …) 2. What emotions are you feeling?(I felt…) 3. What interpretations or wants of yours support those feelings?(because I…) 4. What action, information or commitment do you want now.(and now I would like…) 5. What positive results will that action, information or commitment lead to in the future?(so that…) Reading 3-1: SAYING WHAT’S IN OUR HEARTS Honest conversations viewed as counseling and counseling viewed as conversations that allow for honesty by Dennis Rivers, MA I wrote this essay for my students during a time when I was teaching a class on peer counseling. I was trying to describe in everyday language some of the good things that happen in counseling, that ALSO happen in friendship, good parenting, mentoring and ministering. According to the psychotherapists Carl Rogers (in the 1960s), Margaret and Jordan Paul (in the 1980s) and Brad Blanton (in the 1990s), there is one main reason people suffer in their relationships with one another. And it’s not best understood as some jargon about ids and egos and superegos. It’s that we need to face more of the truth and tell more of the truth about what’s happening in our lives, about how we feel, and about what we ourselves are doing. Many people, probably most of us at some time or other, struggle to deal with troubling feelings and problem situations in life by using a whole range of avoidance maneuvers: we may pretend nothing is happening, focus on blaming others, or try to find ways of avoiding embarrassment, distracting ourselves and/or minimizing conflict. The problem with these ways of dealing with inner and outer conflicts is that they don’t work well in the long run. If we try to deal with our problems by pretending that nothing is wrong, we run the risk of becoming numb or getting deeply confused about what we actually want and how we actually feel. And from tooth decay to auto repair to marriage, avoidance maneuvers won’t protect us from the practical consequences of our difficulties. Now what, you may ask, does this have to do with counseling? Well, a counselor is someone to whom you can tell the truth. And as you start to tell more of the truth to the counselor, you can start to admit the more of the truth to yourself, and rehearse compassionate ways of talking about it with others. This is not an easy task. Early in life, according to Rogers, most of us discovered that if we said what we really felt and wanted, the big important people in our lives would get unhappy with us, (and, I would add, perhaps even slap us across the face). And since we needed their love and approval, we started being good little boys and good little girls and saying whatever would get us hugs, birthday presents, and chocolate cake. If we are lucky in life, our parents and teachers help us to learn how to recognize our own feelings and tell the truth about them in conciliatory ways. But this is a complex process, and more often, our parents and teachers didn’t get much help on these issues themselves, so they may not have been able to give us much help. As a result of this, many people arrive in adult life with a giant gap between what they actually feel and what the role they play says they are supposed to feel, and with no skills for closing that gap. For example, as a child you were supposed to love your parents, right? But what if your dad came home drunk every night and hit your mom? How do you handle the gap between the fact that you’re supposed to love your dad and the fact that you don’t like him? These are the kinds of situations that bring people to counseling (or to the nightly six-pack of beer). And life is full of them. It all boils down to this: Life is tough and complex, ready or not. It is always tempting to try to get what you want (or to escape what you fear) by saying or doing whatever will avoid conflict, even if that means saying things you don’t really mean, doing things you don’t feel good about, or just blanking out. After you’ve been around for a while you start to realize that the cost of this kind of maneuvering is a heavy heart. From what I’ve seen, there is no secret magic wand of psychotherapy that can instantly lighten a heart thus burdened. Psychotherapists are in the same human boat as the rest of us; they get depressed and divorced and commit suicide just like ordinary folks. You and the person you are trying to help are in the same human boat. There is no life without troubles. Roofs leak. The people you love get sick and die. Our needs turn out to be in conflict with the needs of people we care about. The best made agreements come unglued. People fall out of love. And it is always tempting to pretend that everything is just fine. But I believe very strongly that we will all like ourselves a lot more if we choose the troubles that come from being more honest and more engaged, rather than the troubles that come from various forms of conflict avoidance and self-deception, such as “I’ll feel better if I have another drink.” or “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.” etc. Our truthful lives will probably not get any easier, but they will get a lot more satisfying. Good counselors, psycho-therapists, mentors and friends, whatever their degree (or not), hold that knowledge for us, as we struggle to learn it and earn it. As adults there are many new possibilities open to us that were not available to us when we were children. We can learn to negotiate more of our conflicts, to confront more of our difficulties and to be honest about our feelings without being mean. So the fact is that we don’t need to run away from our problems any more. What we need is to get in touch with ourselves and to learn new skills. A counselor is someone who does not condemn you for your evasions, mistakes or lack of skill, and believes in your worth as a person, your capacity to tell the truth and your strength to bear the truth, no matter what you’ve done up to now. That’s what makes counseling similar to being a priest, a rabbi, a minister or a really good friend. When we started pretending in order to please others at age three or four, that was the only way we could figure out how to get what we wanted. Now that we are adults we are capable of learning to tell the truth in conciliatory ways and we are capable of getting a lot more of what we want just by being courageous enough to ask for it. A good counselor, whether that person is a peer-counselor or a psychiatrist, is someone who invites us out of the role of maneuvering child and into the role of straightforward adult. A counselor won’t force you to tell the truth. It wouldn’t be your truth if it were forced, it would just be one more thing you were saying to keep someone off your back. But a counselor is willing to hear how you actually feel. In this approach there are no bad feelings, there are only bad actions. It’s OK to hate your drunken father; it’s not OK to pick up a gun and shoot him. A big part of counseling is teaching people to make that distinction. In fact, the more people can acknowledge their feelings, the less they need to blindly act them out. It’s not the counselor’s job to pull that stuff out of people; it’s the counselor’s job to be there to receive it and acknowledge it when it comes out in its own time. And to encourage the new skills and all the little moments of honesty that help a person toward a deeper truthfulness. There’s a direct link between skill and awareness at work here. People are reluctant to acknowledge problems they feel they can’t do anything about. As counseling conversations help a person to feel more confident about being able to talk things over and talk things out, a person may become more willing to face and confront conflicts and problems. As we realize that the counselor accepts us warts and all, clumsy coping maneuvers and all, we start to accept ourselves more. We are not angels and we are not devils. We are just ordinary human beings trying to figure how to get through life. There is a lot of trial and error along the way and that is nothing to be ashamed of. No one, absolutely no one, can learn to be human without making mistakes. But it is easy to imagine, when I am alone with my mistakes, that I am the stupidest, crummiest person in the world. A good counselor, (…friend, minister, parent, support group member) is someone who helps us develop a more realistic and forgiving picture of ourselves. These relationships based on deep acceptance help to free us from the fantasy of being all-good or all-bad, help to free us from the need to keep up appearances. Thus, we can start to acknowledge and learn from whatever is going on inside us. Freed from the need to defend our mistakes, we can actually look at them, and get beyond the need to repeat them. But these are hard things to learn alone. It really helps if someone accompanies us along that road. Sometimes you will be the receiver of that acceptance and sometimes the giver. Whichever role you happen to play at a given moment, it’s helpful to understand that honest, caring, empathic conversations (Carl Rogers’ big three), just by themselves, set in motion a kind of deep learning that has come to be known as “healing.” “Healing” is a beautiful word and a powerful metaphor for positive change. But “healing” can also be a misleading word because of the way it de-emphasizes learning and everyone’s capacity to learn new ways of relating to people and navigating through life. Here are five of the “deep learnings” that I see going on in almost all supportive and empathic conversations. In paying attention to someone in a calm, accepting way, you teach that person to pay attention to themselves in just that way. In caring for others, you teach them to care for themselves and you help them to feel more like caring about others. The more you have faced and accepted your own feelings, the more you can be a supportive witness for another person who is struggling to face and accept his or her feelings. In forgiving people for being human and making mistakes and having limits, you teach people to forgive themselves and start over, and you help them to have a more forgiving attitude toward others. By having conversations that include the honest sharing and recognition of feelings, and the exploration of alternative possibilities of action, you help a person to see that, by gradual degrees, they can start to have more honest and fruitful conversations with the important people in their lives. These experiences belong to everyone, since they are part of being human. They are ours to learn and, through the depth of our caring, honesty and empathy, ours to give. I believe they are the heart of counseling.
7 Steps to Prepare for Your Job Interview
Now that you have an interview, there are certain things you will want to do in advance to prepare for it. This article will provide practical tips on how to prepare for a job interview. Remember, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, so you’ll want to do your best in preparing for your interview in advance. 1. Pick your outfit: What you wear on your interview is an absolutely crucial part of how to prepare for a job interview. After you choose your outfit, make sure it is cleaned and pressed and you have the appropriate accessories and shoes to go with it. It doesn’t hurt to try the outfit on ahead of time, just to make sure everything fits and you look great. Then put your outfit aside for the day of your interview and have it ready to go. Now that you have this crucial step out of the way, you can concentrate on the rest. 2. Practice greeting your interviewer: You should always greet your interview with a friendly smile and firm handshake. If you do this right, you will set off the right energy and the chances of the interview going well will increase. This is a small and simple step that you should always to do to prepare for your interview. 3. Study your resume and know everything about it: Any work experience or skills you have listed on your resume are fair game to talk about during the interview. Your resume is all the interviewer has to go by in order to get to know you. They may pick things out from it and ask you to elaborate. Even though you may have a previous job listed that was many years ago, the interviewer may ask you to explain what you did at that job and you are responsible for providing an answer. This is one step you absolutely won’t want to skip on how to prepare for a job interview. 4. Practice your answers to the most common interview questions: If you don’t know what these are, do your research and find out or see one of my other articles. You’ll want to have your answers ready and practice them. You should always be able to answer “Tell me about yourself” and “Why do you think you would be great for this job?” The employer doesn’t know, so it’s up to you to sell it. Don’t completely memorize your answers so they come out rehearsed, but have a clear idea of what you are going to say. When you are asked, you want your answer to come out intelligently and natural. Be open to other questions as well and really know what you can offer to the company. 5. Research the company and the job position you are applying for: Write down any questions you may have about either so you can ask during the interview. If there any requirement of the job that you are unsure of, you should definitely ask during the interview. It always looks nice when you go into an interview with intelligent questions. It shows you put effort into preparing for the interview. However, never ask questions just to ask questions. The interviewer will see right through that. Your questions should be genuine and relevant. 6. Find out the type of interview you will be going on: There are several common types of interviews such as one on one, group, and behavioral. You shouldn’t assume you will get a certain one. Don’t be afraid to ask your recruiter what kind of interview will have if you don’t know – the interview will be more beneficial to both parties if you are prepared. 7. Print out the directions to the interview and be on time: Allow enough time to get there and anticipate traffic. It’s ok to be up to 10 minutes early, but no more than that. Otherwise, the interviewer may not be ready for you. Bring the phone number of your interviewer just in case you get lost or are going to be late. If you are going to be late, call to let the interviewer know. Follow these tips and you will successfully know how to prepare for a job interview. Interviewers can tell whether or not a candidate has prepared for it or not and they will appreciate it if you did.
Presentation skills
"Fake it 'till you make it." Blank looks. "Pretend you can do something, keep doing it until you wake up one morning and find you really can." I continue "Pretend you're really confident about presenting. Visualise someone who does it well. Copy them. Really. Trust me - try it - it works." They trust me – they try it – it works – for some of them. Presentations are the most feared part of most managers' lives. I've read that most managers' would prefer the stress caused by moving house than give a ten-minute presentation. To some extent I get it. It can be intimidating to stand up in front of a roomful of people and talk. In another way I definitely don't. A lot of the blame must go to 'presentation skills courses'. Yes, it's nice to be able to project your voice to the back of the room. It's great to have exciting slides. It's superb if you can manage the correct eye contact with your audience. Unfortunately (fortunately) within a few minutes of the start of the presentation most of the audience has taken this for granted – however effectively you can carry this out. The message is far more important. Get that right - in your own head – and you're winning. "What's the worst that can happen?" I ask. The replies tend to fall into two categories; physical and mental. On the physical side there's; projector failing, nothing to write on, nothing to write with, no chairs, too many chairs, room too hot, room too cold, no one turning up, too many turning up, finishing too early, finishing too late, audience being bored. Go through these one by one and ask yourself "So what?". Think of everything that can go wrong and plan an alternative. Great. Something you hadn't even thought of will still undo you. Something will not go exactly to plan. You know that. How many things in any other part of your life has gone perfectly? Exactly. The good thing is that people don't judge us on the mistakes we make but on the speed of recovery from those mistakes. Think of the best customer care you've received? Nine out of ten occasions people recall a situation that went wrong. It went wrong but the service they received to put it right led them to remember it and recommend the company to their friends years later. Speed of recovery. OK now that you know there will be mistakes and you've accepted it, truly accepted it life gets easier. You can arrive early, do all your last minute panicking in peace, relax and wait. People will forgive you if you've prepared as thoroughly as possible. You can't help it if it's the day of a tube strike, the room gets flooded or police have cordoned off the area looking for armed terrorists. It happens. The second category of things that can go wrong is the mental side – your mental side. You do need to get this right. Preparation is the key. I know it's a cliché but it's also true. This preparation starts right from the moment it's decided you're the one for the presentation. Firstly, do you agree? If not get out now. It doesn't get easier the longer you ignore it. It's like that sink full of washing up you leave in the kitchen for a few hours, a day, a few days. It never gets easier – just a bit worse, a bit harder to face each day. Once you've decided it is definitely going to be you – accept it and go for it properly. Do you really want them to know and understand something they didn't know before or do you just want to tell them something and get off? If it's the latter and you just want to impart knowledge, send them an e-mail and save yourself and your audience some grief. If it's the former then you need to prepare thoroughly. This means that on the day you can throw away your notes, talk and listen. And to listen effectively you've got to involve the audience. It is so much better for everyone if you interact from the start. Find out what the audience knows and doesn't know. Find out why they're there. Find out their particular interests. Get them involved – they'll enjoy it more and so will you. It may well be more nerve racking than hiding behind a script, but it is so much more rewarding. But this can only happen if you've got your head straight first. To do this you need to ask questions and get them to ask you questions. How presenters deal with questions by the audience is a tremendous indication of where they are in terms of confidence. If the first line in a presentation is "I'll take questions at the end" then the odds are that; a) they are petrified, b) they have no idea what they are talking about, or c) they have hours worth of material and they'll never reach the end. You need to take a deep breath, throw away your neat, colour-coded notes and go for it. The audience will certainly enjoy it more and guess what? So will you. I promise.
The key to perfect presentations
Recent research from The Aziz Corporation shows that training managers are clued up when it comes to the need for presentation training and its benefits, yet those who are most in need of this help are still missing out. Khalid Aziz, chairman of The Aziz Corporation, argues that spoken communications must be given more attention and suggests how training officers can ensure these valuable skills are targeted at the right people throughout the organization. Presentations are important In a world of faxes, memos, e-mails, newsletters and junk mail, most business people are forced to focus their attention on the written word and, as a result, neglect the development of their spoken communication and presentation skills. A recent survey carried out by The Aziz Corporation indicates that 78 per cent of company directors find public speaking the most daunting business activity. Yet this is a task many are required to perform on a regular basis – almost a quarter of respondents give a formal presentation to clients once a week or more. Directors confessed to being nervous about undertaking all manner of public speaking activities, from presenting to the board or addressing shareholder meetings, to speaking to a large audience of businessmen or giving a television interview. In fact, communication skills are becoming the cornerstone of any modern career. The Aziz Corporation's research showed that 63 per cent of company directors believe presentation skills are more important for career success than intelligence or financial aptitude. In addition, over one-third of respondents felt that poor presentation skills had hindered their progress up the career ladder. Communicate to inspire Highly polished presentation skills are not only important to individual career development, but are also increasingly valued by companies as a means of delivering real benefits to the bottom line. Face-to-face communication is a powerful business tool that can inspire, motivate, persuade, impress and reassure. Clear communication gives clients confidence, and is important for clinching deals. In addition, clients are becoming more discerning and demanding, resulting in customer service becoming a key element in the training remit. All this increases the need for effective communication skills, not least as a significant step towards developing better relationships with clients in order to secure their long-term custom. Presentation is crucial to building and maintaining that relationship. Organisations that employ effective communicators improve their sales effectiveness, achieve a higher profile with customers and win more business pitches. Benefits to the economy As well as being beneficial for the individual and organisations, effective presentation skills can be good for the economy. British companies are operating in a competitive global economy in which the ability to communicate effectively with potential customers has never been so critical to winning business. British businessmen should act as ambassadors of UK plc, representing the best of British business, via the media, to potential customers and investors across the world. However, the presentation skills of Britain's leading businessmen are, currently, not of a sufficiently high standard for this to be the case. Fortunately, spoken communication is a skill like any other, which can be acquired, improved on and, given time and tutoring, excelled at. However, while it is certainly the case that some companies are beginning to invest in presentation and media skills training, it may be that this is not reaching those business people most in need of assistance. It seems that – currently – those employed in personnel are most likely to receive this type of training, despite the fact that they do not address audiences as regularly as their counterparts in the finance or sales and marketing departments. It seems that this is due to the fact that personnel professionals appreciate that this type of training can be a very effective tool for advancing organizational and personnel objectives, while those who really need training are often resistant to the concept, considering presentation skills as "soft" and unworthy of their attention. Directed training The challenge for personnel executives is to direct training to those who need it most – even if they are unaware of their needs in this area or are unwilling to co-operate – and to those business disciplines where it will benefit the company. While it is certainly the case that the ability to speak clearly and confidently is a skill that individuals at all levels of an organization should seek to perfect, approaches will vary depending on the needs of the individual and their role in the company. Some of these methods might include: Individual tutorials for senior executives, covering all aspects of presentation, from preparation to delivery, incorporating rehearsals and constructive feedback on performance. Group workshops designed to improve the communication skills of junior and middle management. Workshops are a cost- effective way of delivering presentation training to a wider audience. Computer-based training, such as The Aziz Corporation's CD-ROM "The Perfect Presenter", which can make training accessible to staff throughout an organization, at their own time and pace, and in a cost-effective manner. Top tips! In addition, personnel executives themselves are not filled with confidence when it comes to speaking in public – 73 per cent of personnel directors claimed public speaking was the most daunting business activity facing them. The following simple rules, applicable to all professionals, constitute a practical guideline for the preparation and delivery of a successful presentation. These hints are equally relevant for meetings and day-to-day communication with clients and colleagues: Know your audience Research your audience. Tailoring your message and medium to your audience makes it more likely they will respond favourably to your presentation. For example, while an audience of young trainees will feel comfortable with a high-tech multimedia presentation, a group of senior executives may respond better to a more traditional approach. In addition, presenting to an enthusiastic in-house audience would require a very different approach from that demanded by a hostile share-holder meeting, for example. Writing your presentation Know your message. Have a clear idea of what you want to say, and what your aims and objectives are for the presentation. "The Aziz Corporation's research showed that 63 per cent of company directors believe presentation skills are more important for career success than intelligence or financial aptitude." Keep your presentation brief and to the point, as most people have a short attention span. As you are writing your speech, a good rule of thumb to follow is that it will take around four times as long to speak as to read to yourself in your head – a television newsreader reads aloud at three words per second, yet an educated person can read print at up to 15 words per second. Carefully select your words to ensure your message is clear, concise and easily understood first time. Take care to avoid the use of jargon, particularly when speaking on technical matters. Remember that your audience may be considerably less informed than you, so use everyday language to ensure your message is universally accessible. Empathise with your audience, stressing the "we" and "us". Concentrate on talking to your audience not at them. Have a positive beginning. Even if the information you have to deliver seems both dry and self-explanatory, try to capture your audience's attention at once. Visual aids If you are using slides, make sure that each one is necessary to the presentation and enhances it in some way. Keep slides relevant and succinct – if they are too cluttered with information, your audience will struggle to keep pace and will lose interest in both the spoken and written elements of the presentation. Delivering the presentation While the content of your presentation is, of course, important, it is also vital to concentrate on your delivery. Before you start to speak, stand for a few moments, establish eye-contact with your audience, smile at them and only begin when you have their full attention. Do not be tempted to read from a script. This deadens spontaneity, making it difficult to maintain eye contact and your audience's attention. If you have spent enough time rehearsing, a script should be unnecessary; instead use summary notes on cards, clearly printed in block capitals, at which you need only glance occasionally. Also, resist the urge to read from your slides – these are not notes on the screen for your use, but should be purely for the audience's benefit. Use silences to your advantage – a well-timed pause can be used to highlight important points and is an effective way of regaining the attention of your audience. Voice development Do not speak too quickly. Rushing not only conveys a lack of confidence but also makes it more difficult for your audience to follow what you are saying. You should aim to develop an expressive tone of voice. In general, delivering a message with passion and enthusiasm is a good way to make your audience feel up-lifted and enthusiastic also. But bad news should be broken in a sensitive way, without undue anxiety or emotion. Personal appearance How you look is almost as important as what you say. Your audience will judge you on what you wear. Your clothes should reflect your status and be clean and smart. While it is true that smart clothes are a necessity – casual dress is still frowned on by British business, with the wearer being considered unprofessional and unreliable – smart is not synonymous with boring. Black and grey make great base colours, but brighten them up with a colourful tie or scarf to avoid appearing too serious. Try to retain your individual style – for example, if you are a woman who hates wearing a skirt, a smart trouser suit is an acceptable alternative. Wearing something in which you feel uncomfortable will only sap your confidence. Body language Research shows that 60 per cent of all communication is non-verbal. Meaning can be conveyed through pace, pitch, timing and body language. Gestures can achieve great impact when employed correctly. It is important to get the timing right and to choose gestures that feel natural. Aim to exaggerate your movements so that they seem assertive and bold, and remember that your gestures need to get bigger according to the size of your audience and the venue. However, be sure to practise in front of colleagues – they will be able to spot habitual mannerisms that you may be unaware of, but an audience may find distracting or irritating. Eye contact is vital as it sends a message to the audience that you want to communicate with them, rather than just relate a list of facts or opinions. Failure to make strong eye contact implies either that you are lacking in confidence or, worse, that you are uninterested. There are several gestures that ought to be avoided, such as hands in pockets - which signifies a casual attitude – or hands on hips – indicative of aggression. In general, the recommended stance is feet shoulder distance apart, pointing slightly outwards, keeping arms and hands loose and open. Relax While audiences do tend to be sympathetic to nervous speakers, a faltering voice and trembling hands will detract from your performance. For a senior executive, seeming overly nervous may reduce your audience's confidence in you as a speaker and, unfortunately, by association, with your material. Although there is no substitute for thorough rehearsal and preparation, there are a number of techniques you can practise to conquer nerves, such as breathing exercises, and it is worth experimenting to find one that suits you. The Aziz Corporation's research indicates that formal training greatly reduces the stress associated with speaking in public. Asked to rate their own presentation and media handling skills, directors who had received formal training were up to three times more likely to describe their level of competence as excellent or fair. Any organization seeking to improve its image and effectiveness should ensure its executives receive thorough training in the art of making powerful and persuasive presentations. This article was originally published in Industrial and Commercial Training Volume 30 Number 6. The author was Khalid Aziz, Chairman of the Aziz Corporation, Winchester, Hampshire, UK.