Practicing Speeches: Time

Video Transcript

"Alright now I want to talk about time for a moment, and there are several things you need to do with regards to timing your practice. I can guarantee that 99.9% of the time, regardless of what you're giving the speech for, you're will have a time limit. If you're giving it for class, you'll have a time limit, if it's for city council, if it's for a meeting, if it's for an awards banquet, whatever it is, you have been allotted X amount of time to give this speech. So it's essential that when you do this practice that you time it. Now what I'm talking about, is right before you start the speech or as you start the speech, write down the time. 8:01. You're speaking, you're speaking, you're speaking, you're speaking, as soon as you're finished, write down the time. 8:22. And then figure out how much time you spoke. This is another way I can always tell when my students haven't practiced because there's always a time limit-- eight to ten minutes. The students that fall within that eight to ten minutes, I know that they have practiced. Then I'll have a student who does a three minute speech, and I'll have a student that does a thirty minute speech. What that is, is they didn't practice and they don't really have a sense of how long they're talking. So you need to take a look at, 'Well, my practice was three minutes and it needs to be a ten minute speech,' or 'My practice was thirty-five minutes and it needs to be a ten minute speech.' Now don't get too alarmed about this, because this was our first run and we're going to make improvements and we're going to speed up on our time a little bit, but if you're way out in one direction or another, you may have to add material or you may have to cull down your material."