With VR against stage fright

A handful of VR apps are dedicated to speaker training and simulate stage performances and workshop scenarios. Can the simulations help you speak more freely, focus better and keep your timing more precisely?

The Hamburg-based publishing house Dashöfer is currently presenting the new VR app Easyspeechwhich is intended to take away people's fear of public speaking. The speaker configures a virtual environment and an audience and then gives his speech.

Compared to previous

Easyspeech is one of nearly a dozen such tools that now exist. The simpler ones among them, such as Beyond Public Speaking by Beyond VR Studioswork with static scenarios and rather superficial reporting. Other platforms such as Ovation or Virtual Speech, on the other hand, follow a didactically structured teaching concept. In addition to the pure simulation mode for immediate training of a specific speech, they also have online courses in their programme that teach pronunciation, stage presence, eye contact or even how to deal with hecklers step by step.

A great advantage of online platforms is that the recorded simulations can also be made available to trainers, colleagues or friends in order to obtain their feedback. A physical presence with the speaker is no longer necessary.

Dashöfer also wants to play in this league. The courses were prepared by a language trainer, the AI in the background can deal with the specific peculiarities of the German language and special emphasis was placed on good visuals so that the simulated scenario is as realistic as possible. "We did not project avatars into the virtual seminar room, but real people, in order to create a realistic situation for the participants. There are inattentive listeners and hecklers, just like in a real seminar," explains Fabian Friedrichs, Managing Director of Dashöfer. Occasionally even a mobile phone rings. These are situations that can make many an insecure speaker lose his or her composure.

VR training is about much more than reducing stage fright. Tools like Easyspeech record and analyse the presentation. Do you use too many filler words? Do you spread your gaze evenly over the audience? Do you speak too fast? All these parameters are evaluated and summarised in a report. The trainee can then set about improving individual disciplines in a targeted manner.

Promoting muscle memory for stressful situations with VR

Josephine Lee, a speaker coach who talks about the "power of the spoken word" at Ted Conferences, among other things, almost always answers the same way when asked how to become a good speaker: practice, practice, practice. Lee says it's about much more than timing between slides or finding the right length of talk. "Practising in front of an audience gives you a kind of "muscle memory for stressful situations", says Lee. The body gets used to the surprising adrenaline release and shows fewer symptoms. In VR, you can practise as often as you like.

If you want to improve your own speaking skills and lose your stage fright, you can get started with VR glasses. For Ovation you need the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive or Windows Mixed Reality. Realspeech by Dashöfer runs on the Oculus Go, as does the Samsung offer called Be Fearless and Virtual Speech.

Source: t3n / presseportal