Conquer your fear of speaking | Learn English | Canguro English

Join me as I talk about the causes of fear when speaking English in an exam situation, and give you techniques to overcome this fear. See you in class!

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Watch Kelly's amazing TED Talk here: https://youtu.be/RcGyVTAoXEU

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"According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy." That was a quote from Jerry Seinfeld, an American comedian.

There are four things I always try to teach in each of my classes; writing, reading, listening and speaking. Normally most people have no problems with the first three, but as soon as it comes to speaking people completely clam up.

And this is with a teacher that you know and trust, so it's worse when they have to talk to a stranger on holiday, or even worse still to a stranger in a high-pressure exam situation!

So let's look at this fear, and how we can overcome it!

THE CAUSES OF FEAR
First, let's look at some of the main causes of fear:

- Embarrassment - This is when you become self-conscious of your speaking, your movements, your vocabulary, everything.
- Fear of making a mistake (grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary)
- Lack of confidence - Feeling like you are not good enough to do the exam.
- Fear of not understanding or being understood
- How fear can affect you exam results

OK, so now we know what causes fear, why should we worry about it? The reason is that excessive fear can completely ruin your exam. Fear can cause two types of symptoms which are important for your exam:

- physical
- verbal

The physical symptoms causes the "fight-or-flight" response, which includes a large secretion of adrenaline, and can cause nausea, increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, increased perspiration, stiffening of neck/upper back muscles, and dry mouth.

The verbal symptoms can include a tense voice, a quivering voice, and lots of vocalised pauses like um and ah.

It's obvious that if you feel nauseous, you have a dry mouth an a tense voice that this is going to have a big effect on your exam performance. So what can we do about it?

FEAR IS NORMAL
The first thing to realise is that your fear is very common, and perfectly normal, and now you are going to learn to use it to your advantage. The stress reaction in your body from fear is an evolutionary response designed to give the body increased strength and speed in anticipation of fighting or running. It causes the sweating and the increased heart rate and the dry mouth, but it also means that you have increased blood flow to your organs, including your brain, and your have sharper vision and acute hearing. The stress response temporarily turns you into a superman!

Now, if you change your mind about your fear, you can change your body's response. The next time you feel your heart pumping and your breathing increase, don't panic, think to yourself that this is your body helping you to pass the exam. The fear is only bad if you think it's bad.

TECHNIQUES TO CONQUER FEAR
Now let's look at how we can conquer our fear.

The first and most important thing is to be prepared. If you are well prepared then you can instantly avoid 90% of the problem. Practice and prepare. Good presenters practice their presentations hundreds of times before they give them. All the information you need about your speaking exam is available online, and there is no excuse for not being prepared. Make sure you have realistic expectations and that your are not trying to do an exam that is too difficult for you.

The next thing is to accept that making mistakes is normal, and necessary. Every mistake you make you are learning. Nobody is going to laugh at you, and even if they do laugh you need to learn to laugh with them. You cannot learn anything in life without making mistakes so just accept it.

Next, practice with a teacher or your friends. You don't even need to practice in English. Why not arrange with your friends or fellow students to meet once a week to give a presentation about something you are interested in? At the end have a question and answer session. This will give you experience in speaking to a group of people and improvising. If you go to English class, ask your teacher if they can do a simulation of the speaking exam so you know what to expect.

Now, some practical things you can do on the day of the exam is take a bottle of water and don't forget to breathe. Also, be careful! When you are feeling afraid you might start to speak very quickly. Don't forget to calm down and speak slowly.

YOU CAN DO IT
Finally, I want to say that nothing bad is going to happen in the exam, only good things. This is your opportunity to show how hard you have been studying and you should feel excited and proud about yourself. I believe in you. Go and pass your exam!

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