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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
DEVELOPING THE DELIVERY
OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter students should be able to:
1. Understand techniques for proper breathing;
3. Describe the elements of visual, nonverbal delivery;
5. Recognize how to build a skillful delivery.
Additional Skill Builder Exercises
3. Expressive reading. Ask students to choose a selection form a favorite piece of literature such
as a song lyric, poem, or prose and develop a 1- to 2-minutes reading to the class. Ask them to
work on vocal and visual expression, emphasis, eye contact, and gestures. Tell them to practice
4. Pantomime. Choose situations for a 2- to 3-minute pantomime. Have students develop their
facial expressions, gestures, and body movements to portray the details of the experience. Have
them communicate all the elements of the pantomime without props. Here are some ideas for
pantomimes:
5. Cultural differences in delivery. Divide your class into several groups containing 4 or 5
members. Identify the specific cultural and/or geographical differences among group members
and discuss how these differences could influence speaking delivery. Describe how these
differences could affect listeners’ reactions to speeches.
In a diverse class, you should get a lot of examples of how cultural, geographic, or ethnic
differences can affect speaking delivery. For example, in my class a student from West Africa
was constantly criticized for having ineffective eye contact. “You need to look more directly at
your listeners,” we all said to her. About mid-way through the semester, the student stated that
she found it difficult to adjust to this “American” custom of making direct eye contact because in
her country such a practice was considered rude and disrespectful. Another student began each of
his speeches with numerous compliments to the instructor and listeners. Before his prepared
introduction, he would thank everyone profusely for their time and attention, provide
compliments about their smiles and appearance, and give them best wishes for a most wonderful,
happy day, and a joyful life as well. Growing tired of these lengthy, repeated expressions tacked
on before each speech, students kept telling the speaker that they didn’t want to hear any of this
and felt these comments wasted time. Again we learned that in many countries of the Middle
East, it is considered a sign of respect and courtesy to spend several minutes giving compliments
to a person when greeting them initially. This student was simply showing common courtesy
relative to his culture while the American listeners expected only a very brief greeting before
getting quickly to the business at hand.
InfoTrac/Library Database Exercise
Have students search in the June, 1994 issue of Supervision to locate an article titled,
“Delivering Your Speech Right Between Their Eyes.” Once students have read the article, have
them respond to the following questions:
a. What is the author’s credibility on the topic?
b. Summarize the author’s viewpoints about eye contact.
c. What aspects of the article do you agree with? With what ideas do you
disagree?
