How to practise a speech at home

Most people practise a speech by reading it. They go over the page in their head, or mouth it on the train, until the words look familiar. Then they stand up on the day and say it out loud properly for the first time, and discover the sentence that ties their tongue in a knot and the joke that needs a pause they never planned.

Saying a speech is a different skill from knowing it. The way to practise it is to say it, out loud, in conditions as close to the real thing as you can manage.

Why out loud makes the difference

The more familiar something feels, the less room stage fright has to take over. That's true of the words, and it's also true of everything around them: the sound of your own voice saying them, standing in front of people, the moment between sitting down and starting.

That's why speech practice works best out loud. Reading in your head only makes the words familiar. Rehearsing out loud, on your feet, makes the rest of it familiar too. It also shows you the problems you can't see on the page: sentences that are too long to say in one breath, words you trip over, sections that take twice as long as you expected.

A routine to practise a speech at home

1. 1Read it aloud once, sitting down, with a pen. Mark every place you stumble, and rewrite those sentences so they're easier to say.
2. 2Stand up and say the whole thing with your notes in hand, the way you'll hold them on the day.
3. 3Record a run, on your phone or laptop.
4. 4Watch it back, once, all the way through.
5. 5Choose one thing to change.
6. 6Run it again with that change.

Then repeat steps three to six on another day.

Changing one thing at a time keeps it manageable. Try to fix your pace, your hands and your eye contact in the same run and usually none of them improves. Pick the thing that bothered you most, work on it for a run or two, then move to the next.

How many times should you rehearse a speech?

There's no magic number, and it depends on how long the speech is and how much is riding on it. A useful test is whether you can get through without reading from your notes, and whether your opening comes out the same way every time.

Spread it out. Five runs over a week usually beat five in a row the night before, and you'll notice things on day three that you didn't on day one.

Give the start the most attention. The opening is when nerves are strongest, so it's the part that most needs to be automatic. You can run just the first minute far more often than the whole speech.

Make rehearsal feel like the day

The closer your rehearsal is to the real thing, the less there is to surprise you. A few ways to close the gap:

• Stand where you'd stand, and hold what you'll be holding: a microphone, a glass, a clicker, your cards.
• Speak at the volume the room will need, not the volume of your living room.
• Wear the shoes. It sounds silly, but standing still in unfamiliar shoes for five minutes is its own small distraction.
• Time every run.

Watching yourself back

Almost everyone wants to skip this part, and most of us cringe at our own recordings. It's worth getting past, because a recording shows you what the audience sees, which is usually quite different from what you felt.

Try watching it three times. Watch once normally for the overall impression, once with the sound off to see your posture, your hands and where you look, and once with your eyes closed to hear your pace, pauses and filler words, and whether you sound like you mean it.

Look for what's working as well as what isn't. You need to know what to keep, and noticing the good bits makes the next run easier to face. Stagefright is built for this part. It watches the recording with you, points out the moments worth rewinding and gives you one thing to try next.

Should you memorise it?

Learn the first few lines and the last line by heart. Keep the middle as short prompts. A fully memorised speech tends to sound recited, and losing one word can knock you off the whole script. Prompts let you speak the same ideas in slightly different words each time, which sounds more natural.

Rehearsing in front of someone

A friend or partner is useful once the speech is in decent shape, not on the first run. Tell them what to listen for, whether that's the opening, the pace or whether a particular story makes sense, so you get specific notes instead of "yeah, it was good".

If you're rehearsing for something specific, the other guides may help: best man speech nerves, calming nerves before a presentation, speaking slower and cutting down on um.