Demonstration Speeches

Overview A good demonstration speech teaches. The audience, through listening, watching, or participating learns something new. As the speaker, you take them through a process of “show and tell.”

How to Decide on a Topic Who is your audience? What will be of interest to them? Ask yourself, “Why does my audience need to listen to my speech? What will they gain from it?” If you were a member of the audience, would your topic appeal to you?

How to Decide on a Topic Can my topic be broken down into easily followed sequential steps? If your answer is no, think about your topic again. Can the topic adapt to fit the setting for the speech? Is this topic something I’m passionate about or genuinely interested in? Remember that your enthusiasm or lack of it communicates directly to your audience. It bypasses your words and shows in your body language.

Planning, Preparation, and Delivery Planning and Preparation: The goal is to successfully teach a process or skill. As with every good speech, you will have an introduction in which you tell the audience what they are going to learn, why they will benefit from learning it, and why you chose the topic. You will have the body of your speech which is the actual demonstration. You will also have the conclusion where you summarize what it is that has been learned and you reinforce its benefits (what was learned).

The Body of the Demonstration Speech You want to focus on the logical steps needed to achieve your purpose. What does the audience need to know about each step? What will make it easier to understand? Do they need to see it? Do they need to do it? Do you need to include every step or can you safely eliminate steps or put steps together?

Ask Yourself . . . Ask yourself the following questions: Are the steps in the process logical? Are my instructions or explanations clear? Is it interesting, amusing, and/or effective? What do I need to do to improve?

Remember You may use your index cards and refer to them if you need to! Practice, practice, and practice! Practice helps you identify your problems and fix them before you present.

Practice Putting the Speech Together Choose a process you know well. Name the steps and arrange them in the right sequence. Now add information about each of the steps; for practice sake, expand each step into a sentence, a paragraph, or a few paragraphs. After you have done this, add an introduction and a conclusion. Become familiar with what you have written and then demonstrate the information to a classmate.

Requirements 5-7 Minutes You must have appropriate visual aids.