The ability to speak in public has been a useful skill at all times. People who are fluent in oratory will always be in demand by society and will be able to find a job. It's no secret that there are few such people, they always stand out among others. They turn out to be successful leaders, politicians, businessmen, journalists, writers, teachers, since in many professions knowledge of rhetoric plays an important role. essential role. The purpose of this course in oratory is to provide an opportunity for everyone to master free of charge online materials, lessons, exercises, techniques and rules for mastering the basics of rhetoric.

What is rhetoric?

This word is of ancient Greek origin Greek rhetorike), and literally means " oratory". What is "oratory"? And how to develop your abilities for it?

Each of us at least a few times in his life had a chance to perform in public. And, for sure, no one doubts that to know and be able to do a lot. We can say that the ability to speak in public reflects our intellectual development and our social skills.

Martin Luther King's famous speech

By definition Big Soviet Encyclopedia, « oratory"- this is a type of monologue speech used in a situation where the speaker addresses a large audience for the purpose of persuasion or suggestion. Oratory is often identified with eloquence, so a good speaker must be well-read, have competent speech, and be able to clearly express his thoughts. But the speaker also needs to master his diction and have a well-placed voice. In addition, it is important to master speech improvisation, be able to answer questions, maintain contact with the audience, pronounce the text with the necessary intonation, and much, much more.

Most of the described skills, which together form the art of public speaking, can be learned. To do this, it is important to work on yourself, to realize, analyze and correct the unsuccessful moments of your own and others' public speaking, and most importantly, to train your skills in practice. Our training will help you work through all these difficult steps on the way to cultivating excellent public speaking skills.

Do you want to test your knowledge?

If you want to test your theoretical knowledge on the topic of the course and understand how it suits you, you can take our test. Only 1 option can be correct for each question. After you select one of the options, the system automatically moves on to the next question.

Online rhetoric lessons

The public speaking training posted on this site is an integration of many of the techniques described by public speaking experts. Each of the lessons involves the development of a specific skill that contributes to the development of your oratory skills. Naturally, each person can master these skills differently, so try to pay attention to those lessons that seem most useful to you yourself.

Video

In this section of the training on the skill of public speech, you can watch videos of famous speeches by prominent speakers: Martin Luther King, Steve Jobs, Vladimir Lenin and others. Also here you can find videos from various competitions, presentations and speeches of people in front of investors. In addition, the section contains video tutorials by leading experts in the field of public speaking.

4 rules of rhetoric

• First rule. Start giving any speech with a strong desire to achieve your goal.
• Second rule. Try to always prepare for the performance.
• Third rule. Show confidence even if you don't feel confident.
• Fourth rule. Practice more (this is true for any other skill).

These four rules of public speaking are, in fact, the foundation of any good speech. If you do not set goals for yourself to achieve great success in rhetoric, but only try to prepare for a specific speech, then they may come in handy.

If you are planning a more detailed approach to the study of the art of oratory, we will be happy to provide you with useful and interesting information in the lessons on our website.

We wish you success in mastering the art of oratory!

School of Yuri Okunev

Hello friends! With you again Yuri Okunev.

How to become liberated in any company, get rid of complexes, learn to speak brightly, lively, excitingly on any topic? Is it possible to learn to persuade and interest? This requires very little - diligence and a desire to master the lessons of oratory for beginners.

It is better to start learning the secrets of public speaking in a team under the guidance of an experienced tutor. Now in every city there are courses and trainings. What are the benefits of the courses?

• Firstly, they will tell you from the side all the mistakes and point out weaknesses;
• Secondly, you will have a great opportunity to develop the practice of speaking;
• Thirdly, complexes are easier to overcome when you see that others are not so perfect either.

The coach will help you acquire a beautiful and confident voice, teach acting techniques and expressive gestures, and tell you how to quickly overcome fear. Maybe you won’t become such an unsurpassed and eloquent speaker, but you will definitely learn to speak.

Well, what if there are no public speaking courses near your home, or maybe there are, but the class schedule does not match your work schedule? Oratory skills can be developed independently at home.

I hope you have a voice recorder (or better a video camera) and a large mirror? Great, you can get started. Ask someone from your acquaintances and friends to become your listeners and assistants. Stay tuned for blog updates, in the articles from this series you will find many exercises to hone your skills.

Three whales and a song

A good speech can be compared to a good hit hit. What does it take for a newly released song to be popular and successful? A combination of three things is required: a pleasant melody, a successful text and a skilled performer. Right?

A successful oratory is also based on three components, that is, it stands on three pillars:

1. speaker's voice;
2. Literate text;
3. Interaction with the audience (contact).

Remove the melody or words from the song, and there will be no song. Likewise with the performance. The speaker's technical use of voice data, the ability to present facts and hear the audience's response determine success.

Voice data

I suggest doing a little experiment. In the company of friends, start telling some anecdote or a story from life, and slowly turn on the recorder yourself. When you get home, listen to the recording. Do you like the sound of your own voice?

Probably, many of you will find your voice too quiet, indistinct or noisy, harsh, creaky. In general, there is little pleasant. Our internal perception is very different from how others perceive us. The task of training is to learn to hear yourself from the outside, to develop a resonant instinct.

The voice of a skilled speaker sounds voluminous, round and smooth, the velvety timbre captivates the ear, captivates attention, and magically attracts the listener. Many things are forgiven to owners of a pleasant and sonorous voice, even burr and small flaws in the text are not so striking.

Can it be developed?

Each person from birth has a certain set of phonetic data. This set is unique. We cannot change the length of the vocal cords or the circumference of the lungs. But we can learn how to control the speech apparatus, tune our voice instrument in the right way.

1. Teaching proper breathing (diaphragmatic);
2. Liberation of phonetic muscles by relaxing them;
3. Developing a sense of resonance.

Four voice development exercises

I propose to do simple exercises for the speech apparatus that will help you improve your voice:

• Resonant tuning. Stand up straight, relax your facial muscles. Take a breath and as you exhale pull the sound "Eeeee". Focus on the top of the head. Have a rest. Now we pull the sound “Uhh”, attention to the throat, we try to feel the vibrations of the vocal cords. Next, we draw the sounds “Aaaaa” and “Oooh”, we control the sensations in the chest area. The exercise ends with the sound “Uuuu” (lower abdomen). All sounds are different in height, the highest sound is “I”, the lowest is “U”. This task helps to improve the timbre, gives beauty to the voice. Three approaches are recommended.
• lion growl. Speak softly the sound "Rrr", while the tongue should be relaxed and slightly raised to the sky. Grow a little like a dog growls. Then say out loud a few words with the letter "P", focusing on this sound. Develops the power of the voice.
• Q X. Pull your lips into a tube, say the sound "Q", then stretch a wide smile, say "X". Alternate movements by doing at least 15 repetitions. The exercise removes the clamps of the articulatory apparatus, frees the sound.
• Basketball player. Imagine a basketball (you can take a real ball if you want) and start hitting it on the floor, counting down from 10 to 1. Each count is one breath. Then we throw the ball up, counting from 1 to 10. The exercise trains the sense of tonality. We throw it up - the voice is high, we beat it off the floor - low.

Now take any book out loud read a few lines. Do you feel how your voice has changed? For those who are interested in the method of voice development, I recommend paying attention to video course by Ekaterina Pestereva "My language is my friend". Here you will find many professional exercises to train your voice and diction.

For everyone else, please watch this video:

The text of the speech is the calling card of the speaker

Yes, yes, the most famous speakers are, as a rule, intellectuals in every sense of the word. The speaker must be wealthy vocabulary. The speaker must be able to build logical chains, skillfully use comparisons and metaphors in his speech.

The literacy of the text of the speech comes to the fore. I won't dwell on this point for long. I already wrote about the construction of a public speech.

Basic requirements for the text of speech:

• The material for speech should be carefully selected and logically linked;
• The speech should have an attractive and concise title;
• The speech should be aimed at a specific audience;
• The text of speech should be divided into logical parts for better perception;
• During the performance, the ergonomic component should be taken into account - the attention of the audience. The speaker constantly switches the audience's attention with the help of special ones.

The importance of detailed work on the text is well illustrated by this video. Are we watching?

Interaction

A good speaker is not only an intellectual and logical, but also an outstanding artist, a sensitive listener and a skilled leader. The topic of the speech may or may not be liked by the audience. Listeners can sympathize with a particular speaker as a person, or they can initially be prejudiced.

The skill of the speaker lies in the ability to direct the perception of the hall in the right direction, which will be beneficial to the speaker himself. A professional speaker will arrange everything in such a way that his opponents by the end of the speech will become supporters and like-minded people.

The speaker should be able to:

• Show genuine interest in your audience, engage in dialogue and be polite;
• Show listeners that he is "made of the same stuff" as they are. Avoid factors that irritate the public: slovenliness in clothes, arrogant posture, fussiness.
• Correctly answer questions from the audience;
• Be far-sighted, be able to calculate the reaction of the public to a particular statement;
• Manage the flow of discussion that arises during the presentation.

I suggest watching another video - a short video from Vladimir Solovyov, this master of human intrigues and a talented TV presenter. A connoisseur of public speaking will tell us about the art of getting in touch with the listener.

Afterword

Whether you're learning the basics of public speaking—online courses, at a public speaking club, or on your own from a textbook at home—you'll need to work on your voice, leadership, and content. Mastering these skills will enable you to become interesting interlocutors, will make you self-confident and liberated in public.

All necessary exercises you can find public speaking coach Evgenia Shestakova in the book "Speak beautifully and confidently". The theoretical material is presented in an interesting and exciting way, the tasks are simple and accessible even to children.

All the best. Yours, Yuri Okunev.

Conscious speech is one of the most valuable "gifts" of evolution to humanity. Having uttered the first word, the child begins active communication with society, and the task of parents is to make it effective and successful. Eloquence, the ability to speak clearly, beautifully, clearly build the logic of the narrative, needs to be developed and honed from the moment children realize their personality. A child of younger and adolescence with a high speech culture achieves his goals and integrates into society much more easily than peers who do not have the skills of fruitful communication.

Why do young children and teenagers need rhetoric lessons?

Rhetoric is a science that helps to reveal the communicative potential of a child. From the age of three to six, children already actively communicate with peers, relatives, and other adults, and this socialization directly affects the formation of the personality, its psychological “foundation”. The art of persuading and "representing yourself" in society is closely related to the ability to build verbal communication links. If a child learns to speak coherently, beautifully and to the point, it will be easier for him to enter into dialogues, convey his thought or request, convince and communicate. He will be able to study more successfully at school, university, build business communication and move up the career ladder. Great Russian scientists (I. Pavlov, M. Lomonosov) called rhetoric the basis for the formation of correct thinking and the ability to think logically. Without competent speech, even knowing the subject, the student will not be able to successfully speak at the blackboard or in the oral exam, and the adult speaker will not be able to defend his opinion in front of the assembled colleagues or the board of directors. Properly selected exercises, rhetoric lessons, built in accordance with the age and characteristics of the child, help:

• learn how to convey information to any interlocutor, formulate convincing arguments, express thoughts clearly and coherently;
• improve diction, make speech smooth, intonation rich, articulated;
• speak clearly without raising your voice and “manage the volume” of speech for your own purposes;
• during speeches, correctly reinforce words with intonation, gestures and facial expressions;
• quickly find the exact wording, supplement the speech with beautiful and not “overloaded” images that suit the situation;
• formulate questions in such a way as to get the most useful answer;
• correctly analyze and evaluate situations that arise during communication;
• make contact with little and unfamiliar, higher-ranking people (bosses, teachers, examiners);
• learn to listen carefully, follow the sequence of speaking, be patient with the interlocutor;
• develop your own oratorical style and avoid mistakes in speeches;
• to become more self-confident, freely, without physical and psychological clamps, to speak in front of any audience.

How to learn rhetoric and public speaking

To achieve the above and other goals, rhetoric widely uses:

• individual or group trainings with professional mentors, where children and teenagers learn interaction and public speaking;
• special exercises for speaking, memorization, logic, reading - they are performed at home or in the classroom;
• additional home activities with parents - games, reading aloud and so on.

When studying, it is important to remember the age and personality characteristics of the child. Educators and scientists believe that the best age to start full-fledged classes is 6-12 years old. For younger children, it is worth choosing specialized trainings and exercises that will help them prepare for the transition to the “next stage”. Children are different - someone is initially inclined to build complex speech turns, while others succeed with difficulty. A competent teacher will definitely talk with the child before classes, listen to the parents and form his own opinion, backed up by experience and qualifications. Based on the study of personality, a teaching methodology is formed, specific exercises are selected that parents can independently perform with their child at home. To successfully achieve the goal, lessons and "homework" should:

• be regular - parents and teachers need to correctly draw up a class schedule and stick to it so that everyday small efforts “melt” into a serious, large-scale result;
• communicate with a single approach and goal - consistency allows you to both formulate a problem and quickly solve it;
• include not only direct lessons in rhetoric, but also exercises that develop the imagination, improve reading and writing skills, literary and stage tasks.

How to do rhetoric exercises

Before any lesson, you need to prepare the room: ventilate it, “cut off” all extraneous sounds - turn off the music, close the window or door. During classes, adults present - parents, practicing teachers - should be positioned so that the child sees all the movements that he needs to repeat. If the children are small, it is necessary to sit down, otherwise they will not consider the movements of the jaw, tongue. During the exercise you need:

• monitor the position of the body - the child must straighten the body, straighten the chest;
• create the right atmosphere and “mood” - for a long time and with enthusiasm, a child or a restless teenager can only talk and train in a good mood;
• speak at the right pace - pronounce all the words in the exercise slowly, with an arrangement, but without unnecessary pauses.

It is worth supplementing the rhetoric course with vocal lessons and home performances. Children up to school age parents must definitely read aloud; for older children, stage or literary improvisation, training in memorizing the text they heard is suitable. It is important to pre-learn physical training. It is specific: the jaws are “trained”, mimic facial muscles, tongue with lips. While doing articulation gymnastics, children will learn to pronounce words and combinations of sounds that are difficult for them. The workout includes exercises for:

• Mouth opening. The lips are stretched in a smile, the lower jaw is slowly lowered, making sure that the tongue does not strain. Keep your mouth wide open for up to 10 seconds, then slowly close it and repeat up to 5 times without changing the pace. For young children, the exercise is compared to the yawning of an animal or feeding chicks in a nest to make it more interesting for the little ones.
• smile. Pupils slowly stretch their lips, making sure that they do not tuck, and the jaws do not tense up. It will take 3-4 repetitions. The exercise will help you learn how to smile beautifully, gently showing your front teeth.
• Pulling lips. They need to be closed and pulled into a "tube", holding in a tense position for 5-10 seconds. The lower jaw should not move forward. You need to do 3 to 5 repetitions.

Classic home exercises in rhetoric

At home, it is recommended to perform basic exercises aimed at improving the speech and cognitive apparatus. Suitable for preschool and primary school children:

• expressive reading aloud - adults pronounce the phrase, and the child repeats it, maintaining the pace and intonation;
• explanation of concepts and formulation of definitions - an adult begins a phrase, and a child finishes (“an apple is a fruit that ...”);
• rhyming words first, then phrases;
• finding differences between objects, concepts;
• "listening to silence", a description of the sounds in the room and outside the window that are heard when people are silent (birdsong, clock ticking);
• pronouncing tongue twisters or chants, backed up by gestures - at each phrase, the child should rhythmically clap his hands, stamp his feet;
• selection of synonyms and words related to a particular topic, and so on.

For teenagers, classic team games are relevant:

• "Alphabet" (for speech associativity) - selection first individual words, then whole phrases starting with a certain letter, and at the end - a coherent story;
• “Drawing objects” (to develop the skill of gestures) - leading a story on a chosen topic, where each word is supported by descriptive gestures;
• “Story on a free topic” (for creativity in speech): the host sets the beginning of the story, each participant continues it in sequence, then next person given a new assignment.

These exercises are a base, useful, but do not reveal the whole variety of situations that occur during training and in real life. Practice under the guidance of a professional mentor is a key principle effective classes. Only with an experienced specialist who works a lot with children individually and in groups, you will achieve a qualitative “breakthrough” in the skills of a particular child. We invite you to rhetoric lessons at the largest school of oratory in St. Petersburg - Oratoris. Here, students improve their public speaking skills, learn to think deeply. Our credo is an integrated approach to classes, which will lay the foundation for a person's success in personal communication, and will contribute to his career in the future. Studying with us, you will master the skills of oratory - an indispensable condition for self-confidence and the ability to “bloodlessly” defend your interests in conflict situations. We invite you to sign up for individual and group lessons by rhetoric and in practice to be convinced of their effectiveness.

As you know, the impressions of people from communicating with each other are 55 percent based on body language, 38 percent - on the timbre of voice and diction, and only 7 percent - on the words they pronounce. Therefore, the problem of a good voice for a person is extremely relevant, since it determines almost 40 percent of his life success.

It is very important to breathe correctly. And the first few exercises will teach us that:

1. Inhale at the expense of 1, 2, 3, 4, at 5, 6 - hold your breath, at the expense of 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 - exhale.

2. Repeat exercise 1, but while exhaling, count aloud: 7, 8...15.

3. Take a short breath, hold your breath a little, while exhaling start counting: 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Do not speed up the counting rate, do not get air.

4. Say a tongue twister-counter, taking a breath in the place indicated by *, and continue on the exhale, as far as there is enough air: "As on a hill, on a hillock there are thirty-three Egorka *: one - Egorka, two - Egorka, three - Egorka and so on Further".

6. This is a diaphragm exercise. Say the text below without closing your mouth. You can imagine that you have a filling and you can not close your mouth:

Two hours without food? Terrible!
I didn't eat breakfast in vain.
I want to eat like never before!
Wait two hours? Nonsense!
There is a character, there is a will,
If I can't, I won't eat!

We are on the right track and the following exercises are aimed at voice development: his strength, mobility and euphony

7. Name the floors on which you mentally rise, raising the tone of your voice each time, and then “go down” down.

8. Speak the words slowly at first, then gradually speed up the pace to very fast, followed by slowing down: "We drove fast, we drove fast, we drove fast ... we drove fast ... we drove fast."

9. Pronounce lingeringly and smoothly (as when singing) the syllables: mi, me, ma, mo, mu, we.

The most interesting is ahead, bringing us closer to the success of performances in front of any audience: exercises for the development of diction.

10. Say difficult combinations of sounds, first slowly, then faster:

Tlz, jr, vrzh, mkrtch, kpt, kft, ksht, kst, kshch, kzhda, kkzhde, kzhdo, kzhdu, kshta, kshte, kshtu, kshto.

11. Say words with difficult consonant combinations at first slowly, then faster:

Stay awake, philosophize, postscript, invigorate, transplantation, supersonic, tousled, counter-break, explosion point, protestantism, stir up, over-alarmed, hit the barrel, agency, hose, supersonic, ornate, philosophize, monster, snort a lot.

12. Practice pronunciation of long consonants:

To Clara, to whom, to the throat, to tour, to Galya, to Katya, to Kiev, to the end, to the city, distant, get involved, give, kindle, vent, get rid of, without a fur coat, ruthless, immortality, restore, confirm, repel;

13. Work on the combination of sounds can be carried out in the form of a game, using onomatopoeia:

• Hammer nails: Gbdu! Gbdo! Gbde! Gbdy! Gbda! Gbdi!
• Imitate horse stomp: Ptku! Ptko! bird! Birds! Ptke! Birds!
• Throw imaginary plates to your partner: Kchku! Wow! Kchke! Kchka! Kchky! Kchki!

14. Say tongue twisters with difficult combinations or alternations of consonants:

• Tell me about shopping. - What kind of purchases? - About purchases, about purchases, about my purchases.
• Buy a pile of spades.
• There is a shock with a podkopenkom, and under the shock there is a quail with a quail.
• Standing, standing at the gate, the bull is stupid-mouthed and short.
• A cap is sewn, a cap is knitted, but not in a cap style; a bell was poured, a bell was forged, but not in Kolokovo style; it is necessary to recap and recap the cap, it is necessary to re-bell and re-bell the bell.

This is a small part of the existing exercises aimed at developing speech and voice. But if you devote 15 minutes a day to such training, you can learn to control your voice and easily win over others.

“A poet is born, but a person becomes an orator himself” (Mark Tullius Cicero)

Even such a famous speaker of the 20th century as the "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher from birth had a shrill voice, not very pleasant to hear. She was lost in front of a large audience, frightened by hundreds of human eyes, while she forgot the words and did not know where to look.

But in fact, Thatcher became the “iron” later. Having perfectly understood and realized that without oratory she would not be able to achieve significant success in politics, Margaret began to work on herself. The "Iron Lady" signed up for voice training classes, took public speaking courses.

Long months of preparations for a public speech, rehearsals and trials, consultations with a theater teacher, an experienced image maker, led her to the result that we all know well.

As you can see, each of us can become a great orator. The main thing is desire. If it is, then the first step towards your comprehension of the art of eloquence has already been taken.

To be continued...