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How to be a better communicator through storytelling

Have you ever heard the technique of storytelling in becoming a more confident speaker? I don't know if you're aware of this, but we are all storytellers. We remember stories better than facts and we connect best when we share stories.

Telling a story when you communicate, in English or in any other language, is a great way for you get your message across to your listener. It can also help build confidence in speaking as you practice telling stories and see your listeners engaged with you.

Here are a few ways that you can start telling stories when you speak to be a better communicator.

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How to answer questions in your presentation

answer questions presentation

Have you ever had a really important presentation for work or for your academic studies? You spend days (or even weeks) preparing for the presentation - researching for content, creating beautiful slides to support your content and practicing what you'll be saying.

The day comes and you're so ready for it. When you begin your presentation, things go smoothly. Until five minutes into it, somebody raises their hand and interrupts you with a question. You are taken by surprise. You answer the question, or say that you'll be taking questions after your presentation, and you continue.

But now you've lost your focus and momentum. You might feel a little less confident because the answer you gave was something that you had prepared for later in your presentation.

So what's the best way to prepare for and answer questions in a presentation? Here are a few tips to help you.

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Have you ever had stage fright? Here are a few tips to overcome it.

One of our subscribers wrote to us last week, telling us that she has a problem with stage fright.

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What does "recce" mean?

A couple of days ago, Azimah, Aisya and I went to go for a venue recce for our upcoming workshop.

recce
An InstaStory I posted on my Instagram account. Azimah and I were testing whether the stage could hold our weight šŸ™‚

Anyway, as I was writing the phrase "venue recce", I wondered where "recce" was derived from. I was actually unaware of the word until some of my colleagues in my previous company used it. They used it to refer to visiting an event venue before the event day itself.

Out of my own curiosity, I Googled for the definition of "recce" and here's what I found inĀ the Collins online dictionary:

verb
If youĀ recceĀ an area, you visit that place in order to become familiar with it. People usually recce an area when they are going to return at a later time to do something there.
[British,Ā old-fashioned]
The first duty of a director is to recce his location.

RecceĀ is also a noun.
Uncle Jim took the air rifle and went on a recce to the far end of the quarry.

 

It's an informal term forĀ reconnaissance, which means a military observation of a region to locate an enemy or ascertain strategic features.Ā ReconnaissanceĀ is also used to refer to a preliminary surveying or research.

So the next time you hear the word "recce" (pronounced "reki") in the office or even in movies, just remember this blog post. šŸ™‚

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Fanboys and a bunch of inspirational quotes

Have you heard of fanboys? I did a quick Google search and the first definition that comes up is this:

A male fan, especially one who is obsessive about comics, music, film, or science fiction.

My boys are huge fans of this cartoon called Gravity Falls. So I just had to put this in here.

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Grammar in writing- When to use the active and passive voice

We have another post for you this week! It's all about the active and passive voice and when to use it.

First of all, the active voice is common in many of the world's languages, including English and Bahasa Malaysia. You are using the active voice when you describe a subject performing an action (verb). It's straightforward and easy to understand.

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The truth about "revert"

If you're a Malaysian, it's likely that you've heard or read the word "revert" to mean "reply". It's widely used in verbal and email communication here in our country.

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"Affect" vs "Effect"

It's been several weeks since we've posted a new blog post! The team has been busy with releasing lessons for our online course, Communicate with Confidence, but I've found some time in between to write to you.

In today's post, I'm going to address the difference between "affect" and "effect". When you're speaking, it wouldn't be much of a problem because they sound almost the same.

But when it comes to writing, it's easy to get the two confused.

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Is it "food" or "foods"?

Earlier today (as of writing this post), I posted an update on my Facebook profile. I asked my friends to share their ideas of what I could write about on our blog.

Sure enough, several people replied and one of my friends asked us to write about countable and uncountable nouns. She mentioned that she's heard people say and write "foods", "informations", "seafoods" and it's getting her confused.

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Improvise vs Improve

Is improvise and improve not the same?!
Sometimes peopleĀ mistake these two verbs to mean the same thing.

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