We live in an age that moves ever faster, and speech is just one of the things that has speeded up. So:  

When teaching you are almost bound to need to talk slower than you do outside work. 

Unfortunately when we’re not totally at ease, which may sometimes be the case in class, the tendency is to talk faster. It doesn’t help that when we’re talking our brains work 7 times faster than our mouths, so our words are always lagging behind our thoughts. 

But if you watch powerful people, such as world leaders, they very often speak more slowly than others. Why? Because they expect everyone take notice and listen, so have no need to rush what they are saying. Be that leader in your teaching role. 

If this doesn’t come naturally you’ll need to bring awareness to your delivery speed and ‘fake it until you make it’. 

The trick is this: 

To speak slower, concentrate on making all the vowels last longer. 

Exercise 7: The benefits of speaking slower 

Get some feedback on this exercise. Ideally, record yourself. That way you will hear the evidence. If that’s not possible ask someone to listen to you. 

• Choose a paragraph of text that interests you. 

• Read it aloud, trying to make it sound clear and interesting each time, in three ways: at the speed you normally speak, fast with clipped vowels, and significantly slower than your normal speaking speed with vowels as long as possible. 

You will very likely have found that speaking fast and clipping your vowels: 

• makes you sound nervous,
• gives the listener a harder job to understand you, and 
• makes your voice less pleasant to listen to.  

Speaking more slowly, in contrast: 

• makes it easier for you to be understood – especially by those some distance away from you, 
• gives those listening more time to process the information you are providing, 
• gives you the opportunity to add more interest to what you’re saying (we’ll be covering this point in Unit 4), and  
• gives you more ‘presence’ or gravitas. 

Reading aloud is an excellent way to practise getting all those positive elements into your voice. Try it on just a paragraph or two every day until a slower speed for teaching becomes natural. 

Q: What did you discover in this exercise about your normal speaking speed?