Strategies and techniques to overcome the fear of public speaking in foreign languages (part 4)

(for the other three parts, see the preceding articles on this blog)

Let us now conclude our discussion of the fear of public speaking in foreign languages. Until now, we have looked at causes and the context where we become anxious. In the last section, we saw the importance of switching from an egocentric perspective (I want to look good) to a position of providing value to your audience.

Here is a list of techniques and tricks that have helped me personally and others in overcoming the fear of public speaking. I will most probably expand on each of them in the future:

·         Using everyday conversations as training situation. Imagine that you are on a stage or that you are being filmed every time you interact with someone: a friend, relative or a cashier at the supermarket. Transform situations in which, in the past, you would have talked on autopilot into situations in which you formulate your sentences in a conscious manner.

·         Record yourself daily. Use your smartphone to record small segments of you talking - in audio or video format. Then listen to yourself, take notice of possible improvements, and train specifically in that direction. You can record anything. The simplest thing would be to report on what has happened during the last 24 hours.

·         Rehearse in front of mirrors. Ideally, if you have a second, mobile mirror, position it in an angle, so that you can observe your posture. Avoid staring all the time into your eyes, because with an audience you will need to move your eyes across the room, and not just focus on one audience member.

·         Practice talking to yourself whenever you have the opportunity. Rehearse specific segments of your presentation. On the street, most people will not notice that you are not talking into your phone.

·         Commit small mistakes intentionally when you are on stage. Learn that nothing tragically happens when you do so and that, when they are asked afterwards, most audience members will not remember the mishap, and that you can gain conscious control over whether you want to commit them or not.

The GO Method

“I have been living in Germany for years. I have gone through all the levels and sustained the necessary exams. Nonetheless, I still make too many mistakes as to get a serious employment in my profession.”

It is easy to start a foreign language. It takes only practice and living abroad to get fluent. To learn the last (!) 5% and to speak without mistakes, however, you will need completely different approach.

The GO Method helps you get rid of your chronic grammar and pronunciation mistakes by applying psychology and principles of quality management.

We offer corrective courses for some languages, as well a general system for improving your use of any language. We support companies in improving the language proficiency of key employees.

Gerhard J. Ohrband

Psychologist and polyglot from Hamburg /Germany (*1979). Married, one son. MA in psychology from the University of Hamburg. More than 15 years of experience as a university lecturer in psychology as well as a consultant for UNICEF, Terre des Hommes, IOM, the EU and private companies. Coordinator of the GO Method network, with representatives in more than 90 countries worldwide.

Contact

Send us an e-mail: Gerhard.j.ohrband@gmail.com

Our homepage: http://thegomethod.mozello.com/

Our online courses: https://gerhards-school.thinkific.com/

Our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3n5LCxW8N3uPatViww-Okw/

Our podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-psychology-of-learning-foreign-languages/

Our blog: https://thegomethod.blogspot.com/

Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theGOMethod/

On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerhard-j%C3%B6rg-ohrband-22525147/

If you want to save time in learning a foreign language without a teacher, please check out my book “The GO Method” on Amazon.

Focusing on your audience’s needs - Strategies and techniques to overcome the fear of public speaking in foreign languages (part 3)

(for the first two parts, see the preceding article on this blog)

Let us move on to more specific techniques and strategies.

Focusing on your audience’s needs

Many view the situation of speaking in public as a test for their linguistic abilities. In the ideal case, everybody is so impressed with your language skills. “I didn’t know you where that good in German, French, Spanish, etc.!” “I want to be able to speak like you”. The main motive is egotistical. We want to be praised, envied and talked about. That is also the root cause for our fears. We become anxious of the judgments of others.

What about making your presentation all about your audience? The people listening to you are sacrificing their time sitting there in front of you. Why not try to serve them the best you can, to give them information that improves their own or their relevant others’ lives? 

Just imagine the following situation: a speaker shares with his audience secrets about how to easily reverse diabetes, while citing scientific proof for his method, as well as case studies about happy families. Do you think anybody will care if he or she was nervous on stage, had speech defects, blushed or even spilled over a glass of water? Most certainly, no. Those in the audience that will put the advice into practice will be eternally grateful and will recommend the speaker for other events, too.

Most of us never think about public speaking like this. We only worry about how we look like. And much of the coaching for public presentations focuses on how to look better and create a good impression, thus potentially intensifying our fear of making mistakes even more.

Before speaking in front of an audience, think about what they already know, what their interests are, and how you could give them at least one bit of information that they do not know and that will potentially improve their personal and professional life. As long as you focus on delivering that, most of your fear will likely fade away. Your role is not of being an actor on stage, but a “public” servant.

The GO Method

“I have been living in Germany for years. I have gone through all the levels and sustained the necessary exams. Nonetheless, I still make too many mistakes as to get a serious employment in my profession.”

It is easy to start a foreign language. It takes only practice and living abroad to get fluent. To learn the last (!) 5% and to speak without mistakes, however, you will need completely different approach.

The GO Method helps you get rid of your chronic grammar and pronunciation mistakes by applying psychology and principles of quality management.

We offer corrective courses for some languages, as well a general system for improving your use of any language. We support companies in improving the language proficiency of key employees.

Gerhard J. Ohrband

Psychologist and polyglot from Hamburg /Germany (*1979). Married, one son. MA in psychology from the University of Hamburg. More than 15 years of experience as a university lecturer in psychology as well as a consultant for UNICEF, Terre des Hommes, IOM, the EU and private companies. Coordinator of the GO Method network, with representatives in more than 90 countries worldwide.

Contact

Send us an e-mail: Gerhard.j.ohrband@gmail.com

Our homepage: http://thegomethod.mozello.com/

Our online courses: https://gerhards-school.thinkific.com/

Our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3n5LCxW8N3uPatViww-Okw/

Our podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-psychology-of-learning-foreign-languages/

Our blog: https://thegomethod.blogspot.com/

Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theGOMethod/

On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerhard-j%C3%B6rg-ohrband-22525147/

If you want to save time in learning a foreign language without a teacher, please check out my book “The GO Method” on Amazon.

Strategies and techniques to overcome the fear of public speaking in foreign languages (part 2)

Photo by Tuur Tisseghem from Pexels

(for the introduction, see the preceding article on this blog)

Causes of fear of public speaking

There are various causes for the fear of public speaking.

·        Someone has experienced traumatic events during childhood or adolescence. Others made fun of you while you were speaking, interrupted you frequently or characterized you as an inept speaker in general.

·        Maybe you had a role model that was afraid of public speaking himself or herself, like one of your parents.

·        Your overall personality makes you avoid larger gatherings of people.

Here is my personal theory.

Most of us do most things, including speaking, on autopilot. When we meet with relatives, friends and colleagues, we do not consciously think about how we are speaking (and moving, sitting). We just do it more or less automatically. In public speaking, the situation itself does not allow us to function on autopilot anymore: because it is not familiar enough, because we become aware that others have expectations of us.

Now we need to speak in a conscious manner. We need to assemble each sentence consciously. The problem is that we feel incompetent in doing that. It is like if, somewhere in the future, people will have become accustomed to self-driving cars, and, after years of usage, they are asked to pass a driving test where they will need to drive the car manually.

From this follows, that if we want to overcome our fear of public speaking, we need to regain conscious control over how we produce our sentences.

Many of us apply the opposite strategy. They memorize their entire speech. Or they try. Because those who memorize are often those who fail most bitterly. Due to my theory above, at a certain point, the outside stimulation will be too much, so that their automatic process of reproducing their memorized speech fails: they forget special keywords and do not know how to continue at all.

Techniques and strategies

Before we move on to more specific techniques, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of practicing improvised phrase and sentence construction. This will give you a flexibility in paraphrasing in the moment, when you forget a word, or when you want to react spontaneously do something in the room. Here are some examples of what you can do:

1.      Find accidental words in the dictionary, and improvise 10 sentences that contain the respective word.

2.      Focus on one phrase or sentence from a text (anything goes: a book, newspaper article, publicity, instruction manual, food packaging, etc.) and read it aloud repeatedly, replacing one word each time.

3.      Take one sentence and try to transform this sentence into other structures and grammatical tenses.

Examples for English:

1.      Fairy tales. I never enjoyed fairy tales. Children like fairy tales. Politicians tell us fairy tales. It is often difficult to differentiate fairy tales from reality. What are the key characteristics of fairy tales? Etc.

2.      Societies are generally built upon mythologies: Large corporations are generally built upon mythologies. Families are generally built upon mythologies. Political parties are generally built upon mythologies. Cohesive teams are generally built upon mythologies. Etc.

3.      Societies are generally built upon mythologies. Are societies generally built upon mythologies? Why are societies generally built upon mythologies? Do you know whether societies are generally built upon mythologies? Societies will generally be built upon mythologies. Etc.

Record yourself with your smartphone will doing this, and listen to your voice.

(to be continued)

The GO Method

“I have been living in Germany for years. I have gone through all the levels and sustained the necessary exams. Nonetheless, I still make too many mistakes as to get a serious employment in my profession.”

It is easy to start a foreign language. It takes only practice and living abroad to get fluent. To learn the last (!) 5% and to speak without mistakes, however, you will need completely different approach.

The GO Method helps you get rid of your chronic grammar and pronunciation mistakes by applying psychology and principles of quality management.

We offer corrective courses for some languages, as well a general system for improving your use of any language. We support companies in improving the language proficiency of key employees.

Gerhard J. Ohrband

Psychologist and polyglot from Hamburg /Germany (*1979). Married, one son. MA in psychology from the University of Hamburg. More than 15 years of experience as a university lecturer in psychology as well as a consultant for UNICEF, Terre des Hommes, IOM, the EU and private companies. Coordinator of the GO Method network, with representatives in more than 90 countries worldwide.

Contact

Send us an e-mail: Gerhard.j.ohrband@gmail.com

Our homepage: http://thegomethod.mozello.com/

Our online courses: https://gerhards-school.thinkific.com/

Our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3n5LCxW8N3uPatViww-Okw/

Our podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-psychology-of-learning-foreign-languages/

Our blog: https://thegomethod.blogspot.com/

Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theGOMethod/

On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerhard-j%C3%B6rg-ohrband-22525147/

If you want to save time in learning a foreign language without a teacher, please check out my book “The GO Method” on Amazon.

How to overcome the fear of public speaking in foreign languages

Photo by Monica Silvestre from Pexels

There are a lot statistics about the fear of public speaking floating around on the internet. Most of the respective articles do not link to some original research. What most of them claim is that fear of public speaking or stage fright is the greatest fear among adults, even before death, spiders, darkness or heights. Whether this is true or not, intuitively or by observing others, we may find supporting evidence for that in that most of us feel at least uneasy when asked to speak in front of a microphone or a crowd.

If this were something that causes you significant distress and even interferes with successfully adapting to your personal and professional life, it would be a good idea to consult a professional psychologist. There is a broad literature on social anxiety in general, and about stage fright and the fear of public speaking in particular. Here, we will scratch only the surface and come up with some practical insights.

Situations that trigger the fear of public speaking

While reading the following list, assess yourself how you would feel and act in the following situations. How would the additional information change your feelings and behavior?

·        You are stopped on the street by a television team to give a short interview. They promise to not mention your name./Your name will be displayed on the TV screen. They represent a local TV station/a national or international broadcaster. You are asked to comment on the weather / on government corruption.

·        You are invited to ask a question during a university lecture. The lecturer is a local professor / an internationally renowned scientist and winner of the Nobel Prize. There are 10 / 50 / 500 students attending. You know all other fellow students. / You do not know any of the other students.

·        Friends ask you to give a speech at a family event. The event is a wedding ceremony / a funeral with 10 / 1000 guests.

·        Your boss requests that you appear in a TV commercial in which you are to represent your company. You will appear as the only speaker. / You will appear alongside an international movie star.

·        At a corporate event, your colleagues suggest you go on stage for a small presentation. They want you to make stand-up comedy / recite a poem / sing a song.

Most probably, you will have felt like avoiding some of those situations.

Public speaking and foreign languages

Speaking publicly in foreign languages may be perceived as more or as less stressful than in your native language. On the one hand, you are less sure about how to speak correctly. While controlling your words, you may neglect other important aspects like body language. On the other hand, there are lower expectations to speak perfectly. As a native speaker every mistake, however, will be attributed to you being nervous (or incompetent).

In the following, we will present techniques and strategies how to overcome the fear of public speaking in foreign languages.

(to be continued)

The GO Method

“I have been living in Germany for years. I have gone through all the levels and sustained the necessary exams. Nonetheless, I still make too many mistakes as to get a serious employment in my profession.”

It is easy to start a foreign language. It takes only practice and living abroad to get fluent. To learn the last (!) 5% and to speak without mistakes, however, you will need completely different approach.

The GO Method helps you get rid of your chronic grammar and pronunciation mistakes by applying psychology and principles of quality management.

We offer corrective courses for some languages, as well a general system for improving your use of any language. We support companies in improving the language proficiency of key employees.

Gerhard J. Ohrband

Psychologist and polyglot from Hamburg /Germany (*1979). Married, one son. MA in psychology from the University of Hamburg. More than 15 years of experience as a university lecturer in psychology as well as a consultant for UNICEF, Terre des Hommes, IOM, the EU and private companies. Coordinator of the GO Method network, with representatives in more than 90 countries worldwide.

Contact

Send us an e-mail: Gerhard.j.ohrband@gmail.com

Our homepage: http://thegomethod.mozello.com/

Our online courses: https://gerhards-school.thinkific.com/

Our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3n5LCxW8N3uPatViww-Okw/

Our podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-psychology-of-learning-foreign-languages/

Our blog: https://thegomethod.blogspot.com/

Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theGOMethod/

On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerhard-j%C3%B6rg-ohrband-22525147/

If you want to save time in learning a foreign language without a teacher, please check out my book “The GO Method” on Amazon.

The dangers of learning to the test: part 2

(for part 1, check out the previous blog article)

Every language learner will encounter specific life situations he or she will need to tackle later on. Everybody learns a foreign language with an individual objective. Even if many students are not aware of this. They say they just want to learn language XYZ “perfectly”.

The greatest problem with most standardized language tests is that they do not test to that individual component. They are generic and the same for all students around the globe. Therefore, their predictive validity, that is, their capacity to predict whether a person will be able to successfully use the respective language in real life, should be quite low.

The alternative would be to have a multitude of tests for different situations: language tests for accountants, tourist guides, bank clerks, construction workers, etc.; for living and working in New Zealand, Jamaica, Alaska, Northern Ireland, etc.; for interacting with delinquent youth, the elderly, members of the high society, angry customers, etc.

For very few professions, there are tests like this. The reason why language testing is not more specific is that most standardized tests are needed

·        to obtain scholarships or to be admitted in educational institutions, or

·        as a requirement by government authorities (e.g. for a residence or work permit).

That is, they are bureaucratic in nature. The consequence is like at school. Many language learners, fearing the standardized test, will postpone preparing for their individual life situation until after the test. That is, they will lose sometimes years, in which they could have already been training language skills specific to their future work situation.

As a language learner, you should try to have clear goals written on paper about what to do with that language. Even if you are preparing for a standardized test, you should already be learning in parallel in the direction of your personal goals. Remember, the real test will be whether you can master your specific private and work life situations later on, or not. There are many that successfully pass all the necessary exams, but fail miserably in adapting to real life. There are also many that are highly successful in using foreign languages without ever passing any exam.

The GO Method

 “I have been living in Germany for years. I have gone through all the levels and sustained the necessary exams. Nonetheless, I still make too many mistakes as to get a serious employment in my profession.”

It is easy to start a foreign language. It takes only practice and living abroad to get fluent. To learn the last (!) 5% and to speak without mistakes, however, you will need completely different approach.

The GO Method helps you get rid of your chronic grammar and pronunciation mistakes by applying psychology and principles of quality management.

We offer corrective courses for some languages, as well a general system for improving your use of any language. We support companies in improving the language proficiency of key employees.

Gerhard J. Ohrband

Psychologist and polyglot from Hamburg /Germany (*1979). Married, one son. MA in psychology from the University of Hamburg. More than 15 years of experience as a university lecturer in psychology as well as a consultant for UNICEF, Terre des Hommes, IOM, the EU and private companies. Coordinator of the GO Method network, with representatives in more than 90 countries worldwide.

Contact

Send us an e-mail: Gerhard.j.ohrband@gmail.com

Our homepage: http://thegomethod.mozello.com/

Our online courses: https://gerhards-school.thinkific.com/

Our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3n5LCxW8N3uPatViww-Okw/

Our podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-psychology-of-learning-foreign-languages/

Our blog: https://thegomethod.blogspot.com/

Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theGOMethod/

On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerhard-j%C3%B6rg-ohrband-22525147/

If you want to save time in learning a foreign language without a teacher, please check out my book “The GO Method” on Amazon.