Cómo hablar en público: Greville Janner’s Techniques for Losing the Fear of Speaking to an Audience
Self-training, personal organisation, communication, personal and professional relationships. Cómo hablar en público (How to Speak in Public) sets out techniques for losing the fear of public speaking and controlling your nerves when giving a talk or a lecture.
Author: Greville Janner (1928–2015), British barrister and politician
Title: Cómo hablar en público (Spanish translation)
Format: Spanish paperback (Deusto), 288 pages
Scope: Practical guide to public speaking
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/8423406229 (ASIN 8423406229)
Everything Counts
The book offers advice for everyone on how to communicate well and keep healthy, productive working and personal relationships. Gestures, facial expression, tone: everything counts. It draws on examples from some of the most important speeches of its time.
Personal and Professional Growth
Growth in communication can bring great results when applied in the right settings. Personal fulfilment and greater self-esteem are some of the benefits of learning to speak in front of an audience. Some people have a natural gift for speeches full of purpose and good intentions, but for most of us it is an obstacle to overcome.
Simple Examples
To help, the book covers the most varied situations and offers simple examples that anyone can put into practice.
Greville Janner
Greville Janner (1928–2015) was born in Cardiff and studied at Cambridge, where he was president of the Cambridge Union, the famous debating society. He became a barrister and a Queen’s Counsel, and for nearly thirty years, from 1970 to 1997, he was a Labour member of Parliament for Leicester before entering the House of Lords. Few careers involve more public speaking: in court, in debates and in the constant round of meetings and speeches that is the life of a politician.
A Practitioner’s Advice
Janner wrote a series of popular books on speaking, presenting and running meetings, and he also ran training courses in communication skills. That practical background shows in this guide. Rather than theory, it offers a speaker’s checklist: how to prepare, how to open and close, how to use notes without reading them, how to handle questions and hostile audiences, and how to adapt to different occasions, from a formal lecture to a few words at a social event.
Nerves Are Normal
One of the book’s most useful messages is that almost everyone feels nervous before speaking, including experienced speakers. The aim is not to eliminate nerves but to channel them, through preparation, rehearsal and a few simple techniques for the first moments in front of an audience, which are usually the hardest. Many readers find that reassurance alone makes the task less daunting.
A Note on the Author
In the last years of his life Janner faced allegations of historical child sexual abuse; in 2015 he was found unfit to stand trial because of dementia, and he died that December before the case could be heard.
Putting It Into Practice
The best way to use a book like this is to apply one or two techniques at a time. Before your next presentation, try writing only key words on a card instead of a full script, or rehearse the opening aloud until you know it by heart, so that the first minute, when nerves are strongest, takes care of itself. Afterwards, note what worked and what did not. Speaking well is a skill built through repetition, and the book is most valuable as a companion to that practice.
Related Reading
Spanish readers can pair it with Juan Antonio Vallejo-Nágera’s Aprender a hablar en público, a shorter, livelier guide by a celebrated Spanish lecturer.
Who Is It For?
Professionals, students and anyone who dreads standing up to speak. Janner was a noted speaker and wrote several books on the subject in English; this is a Spanish translation, and the specific English original could not be confirmed.
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