 Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Assalamu alaikum. Today I will be talking about speaking skills. Speaking is an act of giving information and expressing oneself through words. You can speak confidently and fluently with practice, which means speaking is something that you can acquire at any stage of your life with practice. Speaking is a skill which allows us to communicate effectively. So we can say that speaking is an interactive process in which we give information and sometimes we require our listener to act accordingly. In order to communicate effectively, we need to develop listening and speaking at the same time, which is important because it is an interactive process in which a speaker can turn into a listener and a listener can turn into a speaker. That's why we need to develop both skills at the same time. As we know, there are four basic language skills, listening, reading, speaking and writing. Listening and reading comes under the category of receptive or passive skills because we are not actively involved in the process of communication. Rather, we are at the receiving end, which means we are receiving information. On the other hand, when we are speaking or writing, we are actively involved in the process of communication. That's why it is more productive. Okay, now I would like to tell that there are three general purposes of speaking. It is to inform, to persuade and to entertain. When we are speaking to inform others, it means we are speaking with the intention that we want to give information or details to the listener. When we want to persuade our listener, that means we are speaking with this intention that we want to influence or convince our listeners to do or to become agree with us. And the last one is to entertain, which means we are speaking with this intention that we want to amuse our listeners. Apart from three general purposes, speaking has three specific purposes. The first one is speaking as interaction. The second one is speaking as a transaction. And the third one is speaking as a performance. Speaking as an interaction indicates speaking in which we are primarily speaking with the intention to maintain social relation. When it comes to speaking as a transaction, it indicates that what is being said or done. And speaking as a performance indicates open talks. Now, I will talk about speaking as interaction in detail. Speaking as interaction indicates conveying meaning of a message. And it primarily focuses on social functions. In speaking as interaction, it focuses on the speaker that how he wants to present himself to other. For example, when we meet others, we normally greet them, we have little conversation with them or share experience with them, talk about whether these are the interactions that comes under the category of speaking as interaction. There are few activities that comes under this category. For example, if you are having a dialogue with your colleague or you can conduct an interview with somebody or if you are having a discussion to solve some problem or you are conducting a debate, which means when you are having a conversation with somebody, it comes mainly come under the category of speaking as interaction, which means normally we require two or more than two people for this kind of speaking activity. Now, I am going to talk about speaking as transaction. Speaking as transaction indicates a situation in which we emphasize on what is being said or done and how the meaning is interpreted. The main point of speaking as a transaction is that how the listener is understanding the message if it is clearly and effectively being understood by the listener. There are two kinds of speaking as transaction. In the first kind, the focus of the participant is on what is being accomplished. For example, asking a way and the second kind of speaking as a transaction is in which the focus is on obtaining some goods or services. For example, if you are sitting in a restaurant and ordering your food. The last one is speaking as performance, which indicates open talk, which means whenever you are giving speech or public talk or giving a lecture. So speaking as performance is more about a monologue rather than a dialogue, which means only a single person is involved in this process of speaking. You are giving a lecture, you are giving a public talk, or you are giving a public announcement and the listeners are there only to receive that information. Now I would like to tell you how you can be an effective speaker. In order to become an effective speaker, the very first thing is that you need to be a good listener. And why is that? Because if you are a good listener, only then you can become a good speaker, which means you need to listen to the native speakers as we are second language speakers. So when we listen to native speakers in their speeches, it helps us to imitate it. Because the next second step is to imitate whatever you have listened. By practicing and when you want to speak, you need to read because you need to have ample information on the subject which you are going to speak about. So if you have a lot of information on the subject, you can reflect upon it, you can take ideas which are more important to share. So a lot of reading is important in order to become a good speaker. But obviously, you cannot become a good speaker if you cannot prepare your speech beforehand. So it means you need to prepare if you are going a scheduled speech or a structured speech. So you need to prepare beforehand. And a practice is very important point to become a good speaker. Because if you practice beforehand and in front of a mirror, it helps you to focus on the areas which you are lacking. Okay, when you are speaking, you need to articulate your voice. How can you do that? You can do that by listening to recorded speeches. There are ample recorded speeches of different politicians available on the internet. You can listen to them. It will help you to become a good orator or a speaker. The next thing is to talk slowly. Because anxiety is very normal thing whenever you are speaking in front of public, you feel anxious. And when you feel anxious, you start talking very quickly and in a very fast pace. Which means there can be more room for error. So try to compose yourself and talk slowly. Because when you are talking slowly, it gives the impression that you are more confident. When you are speaking, try to minimize the filler words and stammering. Filler words are the words like because when you are in a live session or you are talking normally, it is easy to go through the flow of conversation. But when you are giving a structured speech and you are speaking in front of public rather than using filler words, try to take a pause when you feel anxious or you want to make a point. Because it gives the listener an idea that something important is going to be presented. The next thing is this, when you are speaking, try to give the important information through repetition because it gives the listener, they can keep that information in mind because you are repeating it. And try to interact with your audience. Because when you are speaking, it is good that you are involved more with your audience and they feel more connected with the speaker. When you are speaking in front of public, it is good that you can maintain your body language. First thing is that you maintain a firm posture because it gives the look that you are confident. And you can also use your facial expressions that it gives a very positive and warm vibe to the listeners. And you also can claim your space by moving around if you are on a stage and if you are going to present an important point. And it is good that you start moving because with this, the reader can psychologically get this idea that something is important is going to be presented. It is good to maintain eye contact with your listeners. When you are speaking in public, it is difficult to maintain eye contact with each and everyone who is sitting in front of you. So rather than looking at everyone, you can scan through your eyes, whoever is sitting in front of you. And you can give a body language is very important when you are speaking in public. So move around and whatever you are saying, it should give an impression through your body movement. And it is better to control your body movement in that scenario where you are feeling anxious and you are feeling a little bit of panic. Do not reveal it through your body movement or through your facial expressions, because your face can tell everything. If you are anxious, you can freeze, but rather than expressing it through your face, try to take a pause, compose yourself and then start resuming. At the end, I would like to say that it is better to structure your speech with a proper beginning, middle and end. And when you are giving a public speech, it is good that you end your speech with a take note home, which means that your listeners must have something positive out of your speech. The very important point for public speech is that you have to keep time in mind because if your speech is too long and it becomes monotonous, boring and it become monotone, so you need to keep in this mind that your speech must be within the time frame. At the end, the rehearsal is very important because it never hurts to practice beforehand because it will give you the confidence because whenever you are in public anything can happen. So it is better that you rehearse it beforehand and practice it in front of a mirror.