The power of voice in speech communication

Objectives :

1. To objectively assess your strengths and areas for improvement in speech communication.
2. To acquire the skills necessary to come across as a competent and influential speaker.
3. To unlock the power of your voice.

Content :

• The power of voice in persuasion
• Measuring pitch, volume and speech rate,
• identifying and using various intonation patterns
• Speaking styles (formal vs. conversational),
• The impact of voice on emotional connotations of words,
• How to better project your voice
• The link between the voice and facial expressions
• Using the right tone of voice in emotionally difficult situations
• Congruence between non verbal channels of communication (facial expressions, posture, gestures and voice)

Method :

• Acoustic analysis of the participants’ voices: vocal "fingerprint" graph
• Illustration of various models
• Assessment of the impact of voice on audience,
• Practising speaking styles with the help of audio recordings.

The graph below illustrates a voice profile as measured by a computerised acoustic analysis program, where various features of the speaker's voice are compared with a model and presented as % of the reference values.