by Fears about speaking in public
When I first started teaching at a small corporate training school in San Francisco, I didn’t realize I had a fear of speaking in public. Sure, I was nervous to lead a class occasionally, but nothing I couldn’t quickly overcome.
During my training to become a teacher, I discovered that I had a fear of projecting my voice. I had this notion that if I talked too loudly that I would hurt students’ ears, especially at the front of the class. I didn’t know now to modulate the strength of my voice, or how it would affect the room.
Several of my peers would encourage me to be louder, and momentarily I might accommodate their wishes. But I would quickly settle back into my quiet chatter. All of my evaluations came back with comments like “he covers good information, but gets too quiet as a teacher.”
Lucky for me at the time, my boss was able to find a seminar for me to attend in hopes of breaking this quiet, mumbling habit of mine. She traded some software training classes at our school for a seat for me at a two-day seminar.
During our first day, I had to give a two-minute presentation on some random topic. It was immediately clear that I was having trouble projecting my voice to fill the room. After some coaching, I got a little louder. After a bit of discussion, my fear became more clearly defined. The instructor set up a video camera at the back of the room and recorded me while giving my presentation again.
As I talked, he coached me from the back of the room, getting progressively louder until I was basically yelling. Watching the replay, I could associate the volume I thought I was speaking at with what it looked like on the tape. Being able to see myself talk with the various levels of projecting my voice gave me the skill needed to project my voice through any size room. I understood what to listen for, and how to modulate my volume to fill the room.
Learning to project my voice to fill a room was one thing that made me a better teacher. But like any other profession, there are many skills that go into excelling at something.
