ESL speakers: 7 ESL speaking activities for onstage moments

Nicole Lowenbraun

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Nicole Lowenbraun

As an executive speaker coach and corporate speech-language pathologist (SLP), I’ve worked with many clients who speak English as a second language (or third or fourth!)

Some of these ESL speakers approach our work together with the goal of reducing or eliminating their non-native accents. While I’m certainly trained to help them do that, my advice as a SLP goes against the grain. I have found that Americans love accents! We find them interesting, unique, and a little mysterious.

Though, while we enjoy listening to accents different from our own, we tend to tune out speakers that are difficult to understand. If you make us work too hard to interpret what you’re saying, we’ll lose interest. Instead of aiming for accent reduction, try these 7 ESL speaking activities to ensure you’re easily understood with your accent.

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7 ESL speaking activities to get you stage-ready

1. Show off your non-verbal communication

Whether you’re in person or virtual, visual cues are a universal language, and can help your audience interpret meaning and tone. Make sure your facial expressions and gestures match your content. Gestures are especially useful if they’re used in a descriptive way. Avoid non-purposeful hand movements and instead, paint a picture and highlight what you’re saying. For example, if you’re comparing two concepts, alternately bounce your hands up and down to convey weighing different options.

Your facial expressions count, too. A flat effect will convey no meaning, while an expression that opposes your content might confuse listeners. Need to convey seriousness? Furrow your brow. Excited about a new opportunity? Smile.

2. Over-articulate your words

When conducting ESL speaking practice, folks sometimes feel that slowing down their speech will convey either a lack of English proficiency or make their audience feel as if they’re “dumbing down” the content. On the contrary, your audience appreciates a slower pace if the way you speak sounds different from what they’re used to.

But rather than simply slowing down, I coach clients who are ESL speakers to over-articulate — work hard to form the words. Use your:

  • Lips
  • Tongue
  • Teeth
  • Jaw

All of your articulators, to pronounce your words more sharply.

Pretend your audience is hard of hearing and they must read your lips in order to understand what you’re saying. Visual feedback helps clients tackle this goal. Use your virtual camera or a mirror to observe the way your mouth moves. If you don’t see your mouth opening much when you talk, chances are your audience will have a difficult time understanding you.

3. Speak in short sentences

Long strings of verbose sentences give your audience little time to absorb your message and picture what you’re saying. Audiences listening to ESL speakers require short bits of information so their brains can easily interpret the message. Some tips include:

  • Aim for sentences that average 7-10 words
  • Avoid using conjunctions such as “and” and “so”

Those are filler words not much different from “um” and “uh” and create content clutter that can confuse your audience.

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4. Pause for effect

Pausing in between sentences is a gift to your audience in the same way short sentences can be. Moments of silence give their brains time to interpret the meaning of words that may sound different from what they’re used to hearing.

But pausing also does something extremely helpful for the speaker herself. Many English as a second language speakers express a concern with English vocabulary proficiency. A non-native lexicon builds only through experience and time, but in a pinch, a pause can offer you a much-needed moment to consider your word choice.

If you can’t access the word you really want to use, a pause gives you time to think of an alternative way to describe your thoughts, like a metaphor, and that might be equally as effective as the word itself.

5. Share stories and give specific examples

Nancy Duarte’s award-winning book, DataStory, shows the importance of storytelling to help audiences understand data. I find that storytelling does something similar for audiences of ESL speakers, especially if that content is complicated or tech-heavy.

Complicated content is difficult for even native English speakers to convey. But add an accent and your audience will likely be left in the dark. Try a personal story, a customer story, or an analogy to help them connect the dots. Either way, incorporating the use of story into your presentation will help you really connect with your audience.

6. Use simple, helpful visuals

While stories and examples offer helpful support for ESL speakers, if you’re like me, you learn best with visual cues. Visuals are especially helpful in our new virtual world where audiences are distracted multi-taskers. If the audience misses what you said, but can refer back to a solid slide, that might be all they need to catch up.

Similar to facial expressions and gestures, it’s important that your visuals match your content. Stick to the one-idea-per-slide rule (use the Glance Test™ if you’re not sure where to start), and use whatever you think will help your audience understand your message:

  • A photograph
  • An icon
  • A chart/table
  • Limited text
  • Or something new they’ve never seen before (we call these S.T.A.R. Moments™)

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7. Check in and ask for questions

If you’re unsure whether your audience is understanding you, ask! As long as the setting is appropriate, build in time during your meeting or presentation to conduct audience check-ins. Prompt them:

  • What questions do you have so far?
  • I’d appreciate your feedback at this time.
  • We are opening the Q&A portion of today’s presentation.

When invited to do so, your audience will offer the input you need to adjust your speaking for their benefit. If they express confusion, use one or a combination of the above tips to increase their understanding.

As an executive speaker coach, I preach authenticity. Audiences aren’t looking for cookie-cutter presentations with similar styles. They enjoy genuine and real vs. expected. Varied accents make speakers wonderfully unique. Don’t get rid of yours – simply work on these small adjustments to ensure your audience can understand you, even though you sound different.

Public speaking is a skill, and we can help you master it

If you’re an ESL speaker and you’d like to improve your public speaking, take our highly-rated public speaking workshop Captivate™. It’s an interactive training in a group setting. Or, if you have a big-stage moment coming up and need some ESL speaking lessons, hire one of our speaker coaches for one-on-one feedback, training, and help.

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This article was originally published on October 21, 2020. It has been updated in October 2024 for relevancy.

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