He uses humor to help the King get past his fears of public speaking. In one particularly poignant scene, Lionel Logue asks King George VI, "How do you feel?" to which King George VI responds, "Full of hot air."
And Lionel Logue retorts, wryly, "Isn’t that what public speaking is all about?"
Sometimes we all need a Lionel Logue to not just get past our fears, but to figure out how to live from a place of not even having any in the first place.
What are your fears when speaking English? What is your identity in your second, or even third, language? Do you ever feel locked in? If so, when and how? In a room full of native English speakers comfortable with overlap, interruption, and different turn-taking rhythms, what happens to your thoughts? Do you take the time to form a question, and then when it's finally prepared in your mind, the topic of the meeting has changed?
In my classes, my intention is always to facilitate a place where the participants have no fear of expressing themselves, using humor, breathing exercises, and practice becoming more successful with the communicative functions we all use every day. One of the benefits of being part of a group like that is folks find a certain comfort in knowing there are other people who understand exactly how they might be feeling.
A client of mine said recently: "English is my second language. For years I thought I had the right to speak it wrong." So many people in the room totally got what she was saying.
Three weeks later, after more awareness-raising, self-study, and group discussion, she told everyone how happy she was about being able to understand people more easily. She had come to understand that hiding behind this "right" was preventing her from connecting with her fear surrounding her English skills. She is finally discovering ways to share her voice.
So how can she continue to take that safe feeling and budding confidence from our conference room classroom to her workplace? How can she find that place on her own?
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