Be careful not to just repeat the Z formation with the same audience members each time you do it – you want to connect with as many members of the audience as possible. Make eye contact in a ‘Z’ formation – look at one person at the back left corner of the room, then the back right, then to the front left, and finally to someone at the front right.When talking to a large number of people, maintain eye contact with one audience member for 4 or more seconds before moving to another member of the audience for 4 seconds, and so on.

Without making eye contact, you could go through your whole speech irritating the audience! You can then alter your speech accordingly based on the feedback you see. You can see if your audience are listening and read their facial expressions to see if they are interested, bored, angry, happy, and so on. Making eye contact is the easiest to way to receive feedback from the audience about your speech. It also makes the audience trust you more because people tend to avoid eye contact when they’re lying.Ĭonfident body language can also be used as a feedback loop. This makes the audience more likely to respect and listen to you because they feel important. Why? Making eye contact with your audience builds a connection between you and them and they feel more valued by you. Read more here: Power posing replication failure 2. There has been some debate recently as to whether power posing is actually effective. Note: Issues with replicating this theory If you’re in a large room, tilt your whole body towards different parts of the audience so everyone feels included.Īmy Cuddy demonstrates a power pose - spreading your arms wide to appear more powerful.

Face the audience as much as possible.

Place your hands either side of your body so that you can easily make hand gestures when you need to.

Imagine your shoulders opening up from one another so that they rest centrally.

Stand straight with your shoulders back and feet shoulder width apart.

If you have confident body language and pretend you feel powerful, you’re more likely to actually feel it! And, who doesn’t want to feel powerful on stage? increase your dominance and lower your stress. Their theory suggests that an open pose can raise testosterone levels and lower your cortisol levels – ie. Why? In 2011, US social psychologists Amy Cuddy, Dana Carney and Andy Yap proposed that holding a ‘ power pose‘ resulted in people actually feeling more powerful. Body Language: Online Course with Examples and Practice.We’ve put together 8 of the most important elements of your body language that will shape how successful your speech is, explaining why they’re important and how you can use them to your advantage. Working on your body language can make a big difference to how you come across to your audience, and how you feel about public speaking in general. Even if you’ve prepared the best speech in the world, if you aren’t animated, open or active then your audience won’t know what you’ve said. Your non-verbal cues will impact on the way your message is received, how engaged your audience is, and what they think of you as an individual. If you’re feeling nervous, your body could be giving a different message to your audience than the one you’re saying.īody language is an essential part of public speaking success. From your facial expressions, to your posture and eye contact, they all add up to the ‘truth’ behind what you are saying. When you speak, you don’t just speak with what you actually say, you also speak with your body language. Rather see the body language of the speaker. If you want to find the truth, do not listen to the words coming to you.

8 elements of communication