How to be present whilst presenting

Amy takes you through a quick five minute vocal warm up typically used by professional Actors before they perform. This will not only allow you to deliver your presentation with ease but also project with clarity. Being heard is one of the fundamental basics in making your presentation a success and a vocal warm up can be the difference between mastering a speech and failing miserably.  

Amy uses one of Winston Churchill's famous speeches to analyse using the voice effectively during a presentation. Having a clear understanding of and being able to implement simple vocal techniques can have a huge impact on how your presentation will be received by an audience. In Churchill's case you could easily argue that, had he not been an amazing orator, he may well have lost the war.  

Amy will take you through a typical physical warm up used by professional Actors. Getting in touch with the body before a presentation has huge benefits as it not only allows you to relax but it also allows you to connect your physical action with your voice and mind. 

Amy introduces you to the Alexander Technique. A technique that was developed by a professional Actor who lost his voice at the turn of the twentieth century who went on to create a physical technique that allowed him to regain his voice but also reaped many other benefits such as: connecting the voice with the body and mind, creating a sense of wellbeing and allowing physical movement to be as free of tension as possible. By adopting this technique, you will have greater presence onstage and a better understanding of the importance of posture.

This is a 'how to' guide on writing a script from scratch, using examples from William Shakespeare and Steve Jobs. 

Having a clear understanding of what your overall objective is when writing and delivering your speech can help you pinpoint the intention behind each line and get your message across clearly and concisely. In this lecture, Amy describes how to identify your overall objective and use examples from Shakespeare's Henry V to teach you how to do this in your presentation. 

Amy shows you in this lecture how to mark a script so that you can clearly road map how you are going to deliver your presentation. Using symbols to indicate when to pause, breathe, stress a word etc. will help you shape your delivery and add colour to it. This lecture now comes with a bonus performance by Amy, of her 60 second pitch, to give you an idea of what she means. 

Amy describes how speech is formed in this lecture. This goes beyond just explaining the anatomy but goes into detail about how vowels, consonants, syllables are formed and how this can help you shape your delivery in your presentation. 

Amy takes you through how to form sounds in the English accent received pronunciation (R.P.). The aim of the lecture is not to make you speak in a 'posh' accent but to give you an idea of a centrally formed accent which can then allow you to work out where your accent is placed in the vocal zone and get you to think about how clarity and articulation can be improved.  

This is a longer version of lecture 11 which includes all of the consonants and vowels in the R.P. accent - this can be used if you want to practice the various sounds created with the R.P. accent. 

This lecture goes into more detail about how to optimise your articulation through using various vocal exercises, including tongue twisters. This sort of preparation prior to a presentation can link your vocal, physical and mental warm up together which in turn can feed into your performance whilst you are presenting. 

Amy goes through various learning techniques that she has found useful during her career as an Actress. Learning your presentation and being able to deliver it without notes is really important. The more free we are from relying on technology, pieces of paper and other distractions, the more likely we are to be able to engage with an audience, read their cues and allow the message to really land with them. 

Amy sets the challenge to learn your presentation in this lecture. She highlights that getting feedback from family and friends is very useful and encourages you to get a feel for what it is like to perform your presentation prior to 'doing it for real'. 

Amy drives home the point that our mind is as important as our mouth in this lecture. Mind over matter being the key to being able to deliver your presentation to the best of your ability. 

This lecture explores body language and asks you to analyse how you are using different parts of your body whilst presenting. Body language is just as important as the words we say but this can often be ignored when preparing a presentation. 

'Say your lines and don't bump into the furniture' is a piece of wisdom that has been handed down the ages in the theatre. Amy describes how you can become spatially aware and how to use the space you are presenting in effectively. 

Amy outlines how you can do a last minute preparation before show time! Having a last minute routine before you present can not only calm you but allow you time to focus. 

This lecture includes tips on how to project, how to deal with the sight of a large crowd and how to command the audience with a combination of vocal, physical and mental techniques. 

Nerves can be the downfall of a would be great speaker but Amy describes in this lecture how to overcome them and describes some of the instances where she has been very nervous but still managed to turn in an amazing performance. 

Amy describes in this lecture how to 'get a feel for a room' and how to not let your preconceptions and assumptions of how your audience is going to react, to get in the way of you delivering a great presentation. 

This lecture is a pep talk of sorts. Amy asks you to give yourself the license to be great and go with the flow and not get bogged down with negative thoughts or nerves. 

This lecture takes you through how to take questions and deliver answers in as confident and professional a way as possible. Using the principles of improvisation in the theatre, it will allow you to enter into a 'conversation' with the audience and come out smiling. 

This lecture rounds up the course and invites you to stay in touch and come back for more! Thanks - it has been a real blast! :)