Tuesday, December 11, 2007
The (re)presentational "Ähh"
"Ähhs"/"Ähms" are the German equivalent of the "umms" or "uhms" in English. Today, I held a short presentation at my University, where we did peer review by other students. Two people already counted the times I said "Ähh" (one person counted 49 - "49 Ähm's sind schon viel, nicht?!" -; another one 42 - my talking time was roughly 13 minutes). Good feedback is probably the best way to improve your presentation skills. I'm glad we did enough presentations at school, so at least the content and the presentation (apart from the numerous "Ähms") was quite okay-ish. Maybe video-taping one's own presentations would increase feedbacks and the learning effect even more :)
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FYI, I had 35 ahs & ums in 2 minutes when I first joined Toastmasters. To improve your presentation skills, you might want to consider Toastmasters (www.toastmasters.org).
In addition, when I give workshops or classes on communication skills, I suggest intently listening to other speakers and presenters. At work, public seminars, on TV talks shows, etc. Intentionally count their ahs and ums (or however you say it in German [G]). As you become more aware of others saying filler words (there are more than just ahs and ums), you become conscious of your own filler words. After a while, you will have minimized or even eliminate your filler words. Eventually, you'll be so conscience of these filler words, they may become a major distraction when others speak [G].
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