Did you know that when presenting a speech, the verbal component is only seven percent, the vocal component is 38 percent and the visual component is a whopping 55 percent! (Albert Mehrabian). So basically, when giving a speech eye contact means everything. During your speech if you are not making efficient eye contact, your audience tends to drift off or get bored because eye contact is how you connect with your audience and feed to them what your message is about. Most people like myself, have been told that you should look over top of the heads of your audience which is wrong! Even if you think that the audience can't tell the difference believe me they can. It's just like talking one on one with a person, you usually look them in the eye, and you can most definitely tell if one is not. Also, if you happen to have a really large crowd then just simply divide them into sections and look at one person from each section in the eye.
Emotion is another big issue when giving your speech. The audience can tell if you are really into your speech or not buy your facial expressions. You don't want to have a great "poker face," when giving a speech because it lacks believability and the audience will not be very interested in what you have to say. As I have learned from reading Dr. Abayasekara's article you want to have more of a "flexible" face. This basically means that you have to, "Feel the words that you are saying and let your thoughts, your mouth, your words and your heart all be connected to your facial muscles." (Dr. Abayasekara).
It is also very important to have great posture! Reason being is because when you have erect posture it helps your self-confidence and assurance tremendously. As a speaker you connect with your audience way before you say any words. This is because your appearance and posture helps tell the audience something about you, which is why your appearance counts a lot when speaking.
