How Telling Jokes Can Improve Your Speaking Skills
by Laurie Wilhelm
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It’s true. Telling jokes can help you become a better and more interesting speaker.
Really.
This is how it all began for me…
I’ve never been a natural at telling a joke; I was always one of those people who would unintentionally, yet ruthlessly, massacre it. I’d start off strong and by the third sentence I had already left out the critical part so I’d stop, back up, go again, mix up my words, stop, backtrack and by the time I arrived at the punch line, the joke had already died several times over, never to be resurrected.
It didn’t occur to me to work on my jokes – by “work on” I mean rehearse. It sounded stupid. Jokes are supposed to be spontaneous and uncontrived. Who practices their jokes??
Then I heard about stand up comics who would rehearse their routines. I didn’t realize they did that because their act would always appear so natural. Of course, it was natural because the comedian practiced. I finally made the connection that if I rehearsed my jokes then maybe I’d have more success in the telling and relieve everyone from their suffering as I verbally bumbled my way through.
So I chose one of my favourite jokes and practiced it…for three days.
Yep, you read it right – ONE joke, THREE days. Crazy, but true. That gives you an indication how inept I was.
I went over and over it until I could recite the joke from beginning to end without stumbling or backtracking and until it flowed. Once I had the joke content in my head, I was able to have some fun with it – I acted out the characters either vocally, physically, or both. Nothing dramatic or anything, but enough to bring it alive. I tried to tell it like a story, portraying the characters by making my voice either louder or softer, lower or higher, whatever gave the narrative some dimension. I also used facial expressions, body language and gestures for emphasis and depth.
I kept rehearsing and by the third day, I was ready. I joined my friends for after work drinks, told my joke in the correct sequence with my rehearsed vocal and physical expressions and, get this, they laughed! wooooo hoooooo! I couldn’t believe it! For the first time in my life, I actually told a joke that made people laugh. It was a small victory but, at the time, it felt big.
Practice Jokes to Improve Your Public Speaking Skills
This positive reinforcement encouraged me to learn and practice a few more jokes. Over time and without realizing it, my newly developed skill of joke telling melded with my style of conversing. I began recounting daily scenarios in a way I’d tell a joke and they became stories. While most often there was no punch line, they were more interesting when I incorporated the “techniques” I was using when telling jokes.
While practicing jokes doesn’t seem like much, they gave me the skills to speak in a way that was more entertaining and interesting. I noticed that people listened better as I became more animated and dynamic. By the way, this doesn’t apply just to stories that were funny or happy either; it applies to sad or difficult stories too. These skills improved my overall ability to communicate.
I’d recommend giving this a try if you’d like to improve your speaking skills; it worked really well for me. Fortunately, I no longer have to practice jokes for three days but that initial effort had an unintentional yet significant positive impact on my “regular” speaking. It was a double win: not only did I finally learn how to tell a good joke, but also I learned how to keep people’s attention when I speak.
that was fantastic- hope I would have been patient enough to practice jokes. i know just like so many other things if I start doing it at the same time so many other things will come to my mind to remind me oh, god you have so much of unfulfilled things to do why you are spending this much time on so small funny thing – then I would stop.
I wish i was patient enough.
~~~~~~~~
I know what you mean by having a lot of things you want to do – time is precious.
For me, this process of learning to tell jokes was time well spent. Spending three days out of 365 that are in a year isn’t that much – especially considering the impact it has had on my speaking skills. Besides, it’s not like I locked myself in the house the whole time. I’d review the joke as I was doing other things, like walking to the subway, as I brushed my teeth, or making dinner. Sure, I did make a point to stop and practice the joke, but certainly not for hours on end. It was a small thing with big results.
Thanks for stopping by!
~ Laurie