There are many ways that you can adapt your speech to your audience. You will want to consider what you can do before the speech, during the preparation phase, and finally what you can do during the speech.
In a commencement speech, Ann Curry mentioned alumni who attended a different college with the same name. Her preparatory research was not thorough enough.
Ann Curry's Commencement Speech
The Big Bang Theory - Penny tries to teach Sheldon how to relax his body language to help him connect better with his audience.
Extemporaneous speaking is un-memorized speaking that has been thoroughly planned, prepared, and practiced in advance. Think of it as conversational thinking/speaking. You have still put in the amount of preparation necessary to organize your thoughts, but instead of reading or reciting your speech to your audience, you adopt a conversational quality and tone. Every time you present the speech you will communicate the same major ideas, but you may use different words to express those ideas.
Many people criticized Justin Bieber for showing up to a national ceremony with the Canadian Prime Minister dressed so "casually" - he (Bieber) was being presented with the Diamond Jubilee Medal.
New Year's Eve - Claire must give an impromptu speech to explain/stall when the ball gets stuck. This is a great example of thinking on your feet and keeping an organized thought process. She ends up inspiring many!
The speakers in the following 2 clips use a combination of concrete and figurative language, as well as rhythm devices.
Try to use language your audience is more familiar with to replace jargon they may not understand.
The instructor uses plain talk to explain how to do this new Bollywood workout.
Ray struggles to be an active listener.
Your central idea should be incorporated into your introduction as you see in the clip below.
Pope Francis accidentally changes a word and uses the Italian for a profanity instead. This illustrates the importance of knowing correct pronunciations and practicing them so that you can speak the intended word(s) clearly, correctly, and confidently. While in this example the crowd was forgiving of the flip, that will not always be the case and can hurt your credibility with your audience.
The following clips illustrate how important it is to pronounce words correctly. Not only does the mispronunciation distract the audience members who know better, it also diminishes the speaker's credibility with those audience members.
*In this clip, the mispronunciation cost the contestant a huge prize.
The following tutorial guides you through several tips to help you create and use effective visual aids. Please check with your instructor on individual requirements for the use of visual aids in your class.
Steve Jobs uses a well-designed visual aid for his presentation.
Senator Conrad utilizes visual aids to further emphasize his points, demonstrating how effective visual aids can enhance a speaker's message for the audience.
The following clips illustrate the variety of visuals a speaker may use and how to use them effectively.