Why are so many of us frightened to speak in public?
A lot of us feel awkward standing up and speaking not because we can't speak but because we feel we are being judged. Are people going to think I sound silly? Do they think my ideas are stupid? Do my ideas make sense?
One way to help overcome this is to learn how to read aloud.
I don't mean read aloud the same as you read when you read to yourself. I'm talking about reading aloud for performance. When we read aloud our eyes and brain can read and move very quickly, when we read aloud we need to give our mouth time to physically change shape to make the sounds and probably more importantly we need to give the listener time to take in what we have read.
Learn when to make eye contact, when to pause, which words should stand out. Discipline yourself not to go too quickly and don't be too frightened to be heard! Make your voice your friend.
You should stand or sit in a relaxed way without tensing your muscles. Hold your reading so that the listeners can see your face and so that your words go over the top of the book towards your audience not down into the ground.
Once you can read aloud to a small group it is then fairly easy to be able to read aloud to large groups of people. I always told myself that I knew what I was doing , I knew that they could hear me, I knew that I wasn't speaking too quickly, I knew I could make the important words stand out so if the audience didn't like what I was saying they weren't attacking me personally. These weren't my words or my thoughts and if the audience didn't like them then that was nothing to do with me. This gave me the chance to practice standing in front of large groups and speaking with little or no stress. I wasn't going to forget how to read so I had nothing to worry about.
It wasn't me that was being judged. Once you can do this with confidence the next stage is to write your own speech about something you really know about and then read that out loud. When you've mastered that, try using just notes. At this point you will have mastered the skill.
For more help have a look at my video course here
I have taught people how to speak confidently since 1994 and I was (and still am) a shy person. I wouldn't speak to my teachers at school unless I really had to and at the age of 10 my mum arranged for me to go to elocution lessons to get some confidence. Please don't stop reading this thinking that I sound 'posh'! I have a Dorset accent (south of England) and I love people who have accents.
I found that I gained the confidence, having learnt how to speak clearly, how to pause, how to make important words stand out etc. to be able to read out loud to the whole school, it didn't change my personality, I was still shy but I knew how to speak when I had to. Later, when I was an adult I qualified as an elocution teacher (1994) and gained my fellowship a few years ago.