I know gestures help people to express their words a lot but how can we express ourselves without using gestures?
Yes, it is possible to express our words and ideas powerfully without primarily focusing on gestures.
Though gestures are important to keep the attention of your audience, reinforce certain concepts or to enhance your ideas, they are not the only way to get your message across, take a look at some other ways you can add power and enthusiasm to what you are saying.
1.Eye Contact:
It is very important to keep eye contact with the person you are talking to. If you are talking to a friend, presenting a pitch in a meeting or making a speech in front of a room of people keeping eye contact is critical to add power to what you are saying. With a group of people, don’t focus on one person, try to make eye contact with the entire group at least once during the speech.
Making eye contact with your audience will show them that you are confident, that you have acknowledged them individually and it will keep their attention. This also gives you feedback; it will show you if they are finding the talk interesting, clear or even boring. If you keep eye contact with your audience, they will be a lot more receptive and willing to participate in the talk.
2. Body language:
Body language involves using your whole body appropriately and can make your message or presentation a lot more interesting and memorable for your audience. Positive body language gives energy to your story, good posture shows confidence in what you are saying and appropriate movement keeps the audiences attention.
Try to imagine being in a lecture hall and trying to focus on a professor who is standing behind the podium, head down, reading from his notes. I bet it would be a lot easier for you to focus on a professor who is walking around, making eye contact, talking to the audience rather than reading from his notes.
3. Voice Tone:
A monotone voice can be very boring for the listener, nobody wants to listen to a flat or lifeless speaker as it can get tedious and dull. A speaker that varies in intonation and melody is a lot more likely to keep the audiences attention over a monotone speaker. When a speaker makes use of various lively tones, it shows the audience the speaker’s passion and enthusiasm for the topic. The speaker can powerfully tell their story by increasing and decreasing their tone at appropriate points of their talk or speech.
For example, if you want to put emphasis on a certain point you can develop and increase your tone to get the audience’s attention and focus their concentration on the topic you are talking about. If you remain monotone and flat throughout your talk you will lose people’s interest and the topic you are talking about will lose its importance. If you are passionate and believe in what you are talking about it will come through in your tone and add power to what you are saying.
4. Voice Volume:
Another way to grab the audience’s attention and adding power to your story is by raising and lowering your voice. This will also make what you are saying seem more dynamic, add emotion to the speech and allow you to exaggerate or emphasise certain points.
For example, if you want your audience to feel excitement or anticipation about the topic you can raise your voice. By raising your voice you are showing your excitement about the story and encouraging your audience to get excited about the topic too.
If you are talking about something more serious, sad or worrying a lower voice is a lot more appropriate and it will show your audience the gravity of the topic. Keep in mind that raising or lowering your voice should be done naturally or else your listeners will interpret what you are saying as insincere.
Remember!
When talking to somebody or making a speech remember to articulate clearly what you are saying and take your time. Don’t rush your point or your opinion, take your time and focus on the points you want to get across.
