The Ice Breaker Project – Introduction
Ice Breaker activities are designed to help people connect and get to know one another. The Ice Breaker speech fulfills the same purpose. It is each Toastmaster’s opportunity to share something about themselves. You probably did something similar when you were in grade school or high school. That moment when you had to get up in front of your class and talk about yourself. Or maybe you listened to someone else talk about themselves and got insight about the person they are.
Your Ice Breaker speech is basically the same thing. The big difference between then and now is you are older and have a lot more things to talk about. It is not about your favorite color or your favorite word. It is about YOU. What makes you, YOU. When you do the speech from that perspective, you can easily see how your audience will come to understand something about YOU. This is YOUR opportunity to share a story about yourself and your life.
Getting Started
This project marks the beginning of your new Toastmasters path. It is your opportunity to introduce yourself to the group and share something about yourself.
For me, I am 66 years old – not six. There are plenty of live experiences I can be talking about. It is utterly impossible for me to talk about 66 years of my life in in five minutes. Just as it is for you at your current age. Therefore, when doing the Ice Breaker, pick one single event, or something that shaped a thought process in your life. Tell that one story as you did it. What did you feel? What did you smell? What did you see? What emotions were you going through? Bring all of this to life in your speech and allow your audience to live the experience with you.
Building Skills
The Ice Breaker speech is 4 to 6 minutes in length and the first one that all Toastmasters present to their clubs. It is also the speech Toastmasters deliver when they embark on a new path. As you work through this project, you will begin to recognize skills you already have, build upon those skills to foster confidence, and identify areas you can improve to help you reach your goals. You will learn to distinguish the basic elements of speech structure and learn about rehearsal techniques that will help you balance preparation and spontaneity. Write and deliver a speech about any topic to introduce yourself to your club. Your speech may be humorous, informational, or any other style that appeals to you.
When you are typing out your speech using a computer program, such as MS Word, a quick guideline for a five-minute speech is 12-point font, single spaced, one and a quarter page long. Do not make it longer than that because you will go overtime when giving the speech. Remember to keep on subject. Do not add a million things into the speech. Just write about the one single subject you decided to talk about. Everything else you want to add in is just material for a different speech. Save that extra information for your next speech.
Competencies
There are a number of basic speech competencies you will learn while going through this project. Each one will help enhance your speech and make you into a better speaker. These skills will all be used in future speeches as they build on top of one another and act as the glue to your stories.
- Recognize the elements of a basic speech structure.
Your Ice Breaker is a story about you. The four elements of a good story are:
- Interesting topic
- Opening
- Body
- Conclusion
Give your speech an opening, body, and conclusion to effectively communicate your overall purpose. Have the transitions working so it all flows in one smooth story. Have the first sentence of the next paragraph somehow map to the last sentence of the current paragraph.
Begin by introducing yourself. In the body of your speech, share information you would like your fellow members to know about you. Conclude with a funny or interesting anecdote that relates to your reasons for joining Toastmasters. Remember, make this personal, it is about you. Be sure that you only pick one subject to talk about. Anything that is not about that particular subject, take it out of the speech.
If you have completed an Ice Breaker before, focus on your goals for your current path, the reason you selected this path, or what you learned in your last path that brought you here.
- Balance preparation and spontaneity when delivering your speech.
Write it out
Once you create an outline, write your speech. It can be helpful to memorize the opening and conclusion and then rehearse everything else until you feel comfortable. Ideally, this combination of memorization and preparation will give your speech a natural and spontaneous feel. If you memorize the whole speech, it will come off rehearsed instead of natural. It is OK to not memorize it all. After all, you already lived the experience and now you are simply relaying it to others. Embellish it as you see fit.
Remember your outline
Create notecards or an outline with a few bullet points from your speech on one page. Organizing this way can make it easier to remember the main points of your speech so that you can refer to them when presenting to your club if you have the need. Remember, your goal is to prepare well enough that you are not tempted to read your speech word for word. I find that using 3×5 cards is a good way to keep an outline of bullet points to talk about. Bullet points are used to jog your memory if you forget what you were talking about. It is possible for people to lose their place, and the bullet points can keep you on track.
Connect with the audience
Effective speaking requires you to look up from a written speech and connect with your audience. Your engagement and connection with audience members will increase the possibility of delivering a speech with impact. Use gestures, eye contact, etc. This will bring the audience into your speech and allow them to see, feel what you saw and felt. Make use of adjectives where you can. The audience can relate to your speech if they had a similar experience with the same adjectives.
- Demonstrate self-confidence when speaking in front of an audience.
Relax, Breathe, and Enjoy
Check your pacing as you begin. If nervousness or fear begins to get the better of you, stop, breathe, and relax. I cannot emphasize the breathing enough. In fact, if you are nervous giving your first speech, be sure to take a deep breath and let it out before you start talking. You will feel the weight lift off your shoulders and instantly relax. Your fellow Toastmasters want you to succeed and begin your journey in a positive way. They understand completely where you are when you get up there. They know because they were there themselves when they gave their Ice Breaker. Every Toastmaster goes through this speech.
Overcome Anxiety
Fear and anxiety are typical for first-time speakers. If you are feeling this way, review your goals and focus on your reasons for joining Toastmasters. Remind yourself that your club meeting is a safe, supportive environment established as a place to practice communication and leadership skills. In meetings, you are encouraged to try new things, learn from the evaluations you receive, and celebrate your successes. All those fears and anxiety is mostly from a lack of knowledge. You are stepping outside of that comfort zone into a new world of speaking. The more you speak, the easier it becomes and the more fun you have. Practice, practice, practice, I promise, as you develop those speaking muscle memories everything becomes easier.
- Acknowledge the value of peer feedback.
Your speech evaluator will deliver a verbal evaluation before the club meeting is finished. The verbal evaluation is in front of the club. Your evaluator will go over the good points that they liked about your speech. Then tell you a few things to help you improve for your next speech along with the impact those changes will have on the audience. Followed up with a summary for your emphasizing what your speech was like to them plus what they look for in the future.
Your speech evaluator will also share a written evaluation with you after the club meeting. Since these projects are all in Pathways, you will upload the written evaluation to your base camp for future reference. Feel free to go back and look at the evaluation multiple times. You will surprise yourself when you go back a month later and end up learning something new to work on.
Depending on the practice of your club, you may receive written evaluations from the other members as well. It may be helpful to save these evaluations for future reference just as you did the one from your evaluator. Many pieces of feedback you receive for a given speech can add to the effectiveness of your future speeches. Gather as many as possible and put them all to use.
Accepting a constructive evaluation is an integral part of improving as a public speaker and leader. No one here is out to “get you”. Every single Toastmaster has a vested interest in your success. They are all willing to help whenever possible. Not to worry, your turn to give back will come soon enough when you start evaluating the other club member speeches.
After the meeting, ask your evaluator questions to clarify anything you did not understand. Talk to your mentor to gain additional feedback you can use in future speeches. Your mentor is their to help you succeed in the long term. They will give you advice and tasks to help you improve thus, pushing you ever closer to your goal.
- Develop the skills needed to accept feedback graciously.
Accepting feedback can be challenging. Be aware of your responses during your evaluation at the club meeting.
- Listen carefully to the evaluator.
- Look directly at the evaluator as they give their evaluation.
- Suspend all judgment or reaction to what you hear.
- Carefully consider each comment and suggestion for improvement.
- Take time after meeting with your evaluator to evaluate your efforts yourself.
- Identify feedback to apply to subsequent speeches
Once you receive feedback, apply what you have learned. Each of us has a unique method for adopting new information and integrating it into our behaviors. Let’s face it. Not everything you get as feedback is right for you. You have your own style. Pick the correct feedback that fits your style and make use of it. Do not be afraid to let a piece of information sit there for a while before you make use of it. If i tried to implement every single thing my evaluators told me by integrating them into my next speech, I would never get another speech done.
Consider converting the feedback into a list and comparing it to a new speech you are writing. Cross-reference the list with your speech as you incorporate the feedback. Any method that works for you is appropriate. Remember, you are in this for the long haul with the goal of becoming a better public speaker and leader. Learn and hone the techniques that are most useful to you in order to solidify your communication methods.
Keep your focus on improvement in your future speeches and projects. Each time you get to another project, take one lesson from the evaluator and use that to fix just one thing. You will find over a period of time that suddenly you have a rather large toolbox of speech techniques you can use to enthrall your audience. Nothing happens overnight. To become an expert at something you need to do it for 10,000 hours…let me tell you – that is a lot of speaking – LOL.
Review and Apply What You Learned in This Project
You went through a lot of material presented here. Now it is time for you to ask yourself a few questions about what you learned and start applying them as you create your speech. Remember to do these for each speech so that your speech preparations develop muscle memory of their own.
- What are some strategies you can use to balance preparation and spontaneity when delivering your speech?
- List your strongest communication and leadership skills.
- What are the elements of a basic speech structure?
- How will you approach receiving a speech evaluation from a peer?
- What communication and leadership skills do you want to develop?
- How will you choose feedback to apply to your next speech?
- List your immediate goals for communication and leadership.
Resources
Download Ice Breaker Speech Outline Worksheet
Download the Ice Breaker Evaluation Form
Evaluating The Ice Breaker Speech
Every evaluation comes with several sections. There are two important sections that the evaluator should take note of before going into a meeting to evaluate a speech. The purpose Statement and the Notes to Evaluator Section. These two sections will tell the evaluator what to watch out for and give hints on how to evaluate a particular speech assignment. Here are the two sections for the Ice Breaker Project
Purpose Statement
The purpose of this project is for the member to introduce themselves to the club and learn the basic structure of a
public speech.
Notes for the Evaluator
This member is completing their first speech in Toastmasters. The goal of the evaluation is to give the member
an effective evaluation of their speech and delivery style. Because the “Ice Breaker” is the first project a member
completes, you may choose to use only the notes section and not the numerical score.
If you know you will be the evaluator ahead of the meeting, communicate with the speaker to learn about them and
their goals for their first speech. Be sure to set aside enough time in your schedule to meet with the speaker after
their speech to review the evaluation and answer any questions they may have.
In the Purpose Statement Section
There are two very specific details that the evaluator is looking for. First, is the speech about the speaker? Second, does the speech have the basic structure (beginning, middle, and end)?
In the Note for the Evaluator Section
There are many hints on what the evaluator should be doing. Most Toastmasters just pull out the evaluation form and simply fill it out based on what they think they know. But these notes are fairly specific on what to look for. Take the first paragraph of this Notes section and ask yourself. Do you fill out the form correctly? Is your evaluation strictly on the speech and its delivery style?
There is also emphasis on the task of meeting with the speaker both before and after the speech. You want to know what their goals are with the speech. This way you can pay particular attention to what they want to accomplish and give them appropriate feedback accordingly. You also want to allow the speaker to confer with you about the evaluation and answer any questions they may have. Do you do this?