When I taught public speaking, the most effective advice I gave was "practice speaking like Barak Obama".
Look up videos of Obamas major speeches to see how he talks. Write down 5 topics/questions you'd often speak about, stand in front of a mirror, and give a timed 30 second mini-speech in your best Obama impression (no funny voices). If you can, record them and show them to a friend for critiques, so you can track your progess.
A couple reasons this works:
(1) He speaks slowly and deliberately, which is (a) very compelling, as it projects confidence and thoughtfulness, (b) accessible, especially if you need to think about what you're saying, and (c) it slows down the conversation, encouraging full thoughts from others, rather than rapid, back-and-forth exchange.
(2) Most people discount the value of presence (posture, eye contact, facial expression) in verbal communication. Obama does it all really well, and in a way that's pretty linearly-improvable (i.e., they're still helpful even if you're mediocre, and keep helping as you get better).
It works better in a speech, but not in a conversation. While non-native speakers are ramping up, it’s clearly visible where they are with their speaking skills, but if you want to come close to native speaking proficiency then speed should not be ignored.
Fair - I’m just talking about communication at a given lev of fluency (I know nothing about building language fluency). Simply being better at English would def help too lol
I will point out though - the thing about Obama’s speed is that it is SO slow that, lacking filler words, it feels deliberate. The slow speed is actually playing games with silence. It’s the Yoda strategy - Yoda sucks at English, but is a wonderful communicator.
Look up videos of Obamas major speeches to see how he talks. Write down 5 topics/questions you'd often speak about, stand in front of a mirror, and give a timed 30 second mini-speech in your best Obama impression (no funny voices). If you can, record them and show them to a friend for critiques, so you can track your progess.
A couple reasons this works:
(1) He speaks slowly and deliberately, which is (a) very compelling, as it projects confidence and thoughtfulness, (b) accessible, especially if you need to think about what you're saying, and (c) it slows down the conversation, encouraging full thoughts from others, rather than rapid, back-and-forth exchange.
(2) Most people discount the value of presence (posture, eye contact, facial expression) in verbal communication. Obama does it all really well, and in a way that's pretty linearly-improvable (i.e., they're still helpful even if you're mediocre, and keep helping as you get better).