Public speaking is more than just words?

I recently attended a Toastmasters meeting where everyone spoke Portuguese.

My original intention wasn’t to attend a non-English meeting. My wife and I were travelling to Portugal, so I did some research on various Toastmasters clubs in the cities we were planning to visit and came across Oporto Toastmasters Club online.

I reached out to the vice-president of membership. He explained the club alternates between Portuguese and English meetings every week, and the date I was planning to attend would be a Portuguese meeting.

“I hope you will still come,” Paulo wrote in his e-mail to me.

In the YouTube video attached to this article, I explain (more in-depth) why on Earth I figured this would be a good idea. But the TLDR version is that I thought it would be an interesting experience.
And I was right.

I was nervous when I arrived for the meeting, but most of the club members are also strong English speakers, so they made me feel very welcome prior to the meeting. They asked me to come up to the front and introduce myself and, thankfully, they allowed me to give my introduction in English, otherwise, my full speech would’ve been: “Ola… abrigado.”

What amazed me most about the experience of attending Oporto Toastmasters Club was that I could still understand the general themes that were talked about, even though I don’t understand Portuguese.

There’s a statistical formula used periodically to describe the percentage breakdown of how a message is communicated—55/38/7. It’s suggested 55%t of how a message is communicated is reliant on body language, 38% of how a message is communicated has to do with vocal tone and variety and only 7% of communication is based on the words we speak.

While there has been some debate about the accuracy of this data when it comes to public speaking, it’s clear body language and vocal variety are essential elements to effective communication. For example, when I watched an Oporto Toastmasters Club member give a speech and bring his hands close to his heart, I knew he was talking about something that meant a lot to him.

I was incredibly impressed by the quality of speakers at Oporto Toastmasters Club. While I’m unable to comment directly on the content of the speeches, each member leveraged non-verbal speaking tools to keep my attention throughout the meeting. Most of the speakers did an incredible job holding eye contact with members of the audience, they made purposeful movements with their body and they strategically increased and decreased their volume.

My final takeaway from this experience was a deep appreciation for those who practice giving presentations in a secondary language. As mentioned before, Oporto Toastmasters Club alternates between Portuguese and English meetings every week, and most members attend both. Public speaking is challenging enough to tackle in our native tongue, let alone in a different language.

The fact so many people in this world are brave enough to step in front of an audience and speak in a secondary language is incredibly inspiring.

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If you’re thinking about joining Toastmasters to improve your public speaking skills, our Kelowna AM Toastmasters Club is always looking for new members.
If you’re interested in learning more about Impactful Communication, subscribe to my YouTube channel.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.