Speaking with Confidence

Just a short note to describe the benefit of addressing stress. One of my students, whose spoken English is actually pretty good, goes to pieces when asked to speak at length in class. He stammers, he loses his place, he apologies. We read a short piece on how to deal with presentation nerves (practice, stretch, breathe deeply, imagine your audience naked or, as the Chinese apparently say, imagine your audience are tomatoes and potatoes). When he came to present in the assessment he spoke confidently and fluently so much so that the assessing teacher couldn’t believe it was his performance I was concerned about. It was like watching Clark Kent remove his glasses and turn into Superman! It was fantastic. And it was due to stretching and deep breathing before starting, apparently.