How to learn public speaking in 4 hours online
This is the Fitts and Posner model of skill acquisition.
The Fitts and Posner model of skill acquisition is a helpful way of visualizing what you have to do to learn public speaking skills.
The vertical axis represents how well you can perform a skill.
The horizontal axis represents how long you have been practicing and delivering the skill.
The graph is split into three distinct phases: the Knowledge phase, the Self-correcting phase, and the Effortless phase.
Fitts & Posner referred to these phases as the “Cognitive” phase, the “Associative” phase, and the “Autonomous“ phase. Others referred to these as “unconscious incompetence”, “conscious incompetence”, “conscious competence” and unconscious competence”. But Knowledge, Self-correcting, and Effortless are more plain English descriptors.
What happens in the Knowledge Phase?
In the Knowledge Phase, you learn what is relevant and what is irrelevant about public speaking. In this course, that includes the following concepts and skills:
Outcomes = Decision, Restatement & Liking
Reactions (Decision) = Agreement, Value & Trust
Reactions (Restatement & Liking)= Memory, Alert & Image-generation
Choices (Decision) = Analogy, Pattern & “Problem General Specific”
Choices (Restatement & Liking) = Sound Change, Say-what-you-see & “Repeat Count”
Bonus! (Storytelling Models) = Storycircle, “Choose-your-own-adventure” & “Conflicted Conversations”.
What happens in the Self-correcting Phase?
In the Self-correcting phase, you learn how to spot yourself (or other speakers) performing the above skills incorrectly (and what to change to perform better). You get faster and faster at self-correcting until eventually you rarely make mistakes.
Here’s how students typically progress:
Student intends to perform the skill to a certain standard. Before looking at recorded feedback, they think their actual performance was close to their intended performance.
After reviewing recorded feedback of themselves, students realize their actual performance fell significantly short of their intention. We call the difference between intended performance and actual performance “short-fall factor”.
With previous “short-fall” attempts in mind, the student is told to deliberately “over-do” the skill. The student has to think very hard to speak in a way they have not spoken before.
After reviewing recorded feedback, students see how their actual performance still “falls short” of their intended performance - but this time actual performance is closer to their desired standard of performance.
Students perform several varied and increasingly difficult exercises (with feedback and opportunities to self-correct).
Students start to self-correct soon after the wrong words leave their mouth.
Students start to self-correct before the wrong words leave their mouth.
Students eventually see their actual performance more closely match their intention.
One day the student wakes up, performs a relatively difficult speech exercise, doesn’t make mistakes, and doesn’t need to think very hard about how they are speaking. This is a sign they have reached the Effortless phase.
What happens in the Effortless Phase?
In the Effortless phase, students are no only able to use the skills and concepts but they prefer to use those skills. It is weird for them not to default to those skills.
To improve further, the student needs high-pressure stimulus to test their skills in increasingly difficult situations. This can include:
reducing the speaker’s preparation time (or providing no preparation time)
increasing the speaker’s anxiety & heart rate using distractions & interruptions
requiring the speaker to adjust their content for different audiences
providing increasingly subtle cues for the speaker to react to.
How do people get worse at public speaking?
Public speaking skills reverse at different rates depending on your skill level.
This is how a student’s public speaking skills typically reverse in between practice sessions:
After the first 1 hour session, the student has gained a significant amount of knowledge about the above concepts and skills. They can get 100% on a quiz at the end of the session.
A day or a week passes and the student returns for their second 1 hour session. They are given the same quiz. They almost always score significantly lower at the start of session 2 than after session 1.
In the Knowledge phase, performance significantly increases, but also reverses significantly. Performance come and goes quickly.
In session 2, the student is given a recap of session 1 and their knowledge is quickly restored in about 10 minutes. Remember, it took 1 hour to learn that same knowledge in Session 1. This shows that knowledge comes and goes very quickly in the Knowledge phase.
The focus of session 2 is to expose the student to as much practice, feedback and opportunities for self-correction and reflection as possible. We start with easy activities, like “spot the technique being used by a speaker on youtube”. We progress to harder skills, like “try to use the skill the same way the speaker on Youtube did“. However, the student is primed to try to over-perform the skill, because it is likely the speaker will fall into the “short-fall factor” pitfall (under-performing the skill) when attempting a new skill. We want them to speak in a way they have never spoken before to provide the brain stimulus to adapt and improve. We watch a recording of their attempt and the student tries to spot the ways they complied with the speaking skill and they ways they did not in their performance. We continue exercises until the student can get them right and progress to harder skills, like “read this speech from a movie for the first time using the skills you learnt from the previous activity“.
In Session 3, the student is given a recap of what they learnt in Sessions 1 and 2. Typically, the student scores higher in Session 3 then they did at the start of Session 2. This indicates they are progressing along the Fitts and Posner Skill Curve, as their rate of reversibility is not as rapid as it was before, and their performance is also to a higher standard. I provide the student with harder and more realistic speaking activities to increase the pressure and stimulus to adapt. Activities include “in 3 minutes, write a speech you will have to give at work and deliver it using the skills you have learnt so far“. They perform the speech and watch their recorded performance, again spotting the ways they could have performed the skills better. We repeat the activities before progressing the difficulty, which may include “perform the speech and then answer questions or interruptions“. By the end of Session 3, the student is usually very confident and practiced at the skills.
In Session 4, the student is given a recap test and usually gets a very high score without referring to any notes. This indicates their knowledge is effortless and automatic (instead of straining to remember, it is weird for them not to know the answer). The student is given retests of the easy, medium and hard activities used in the previous Sessions. Their performance in these activities is usually to a personal best standard. More importantly, their performance is orientated around the skills, rather than an unstructured and purely improvised attempt. This level of performance indicates the student has crossed the line between the self-correction phase and the effortless phase.
From here on, and without practice, the student’s ability to perform the public speaking skills will reverse at a very slow rate. For example, in 10 years time, the student may only need 10 minutes to refresh their memory before being able to perform to a high standard once again. This is the “like riding a bike” effect.