In my still-brief career in Toastmasters, I have received feedback from members from my club, and other clubs, that the one area they want to strengthen in their public speaking skills is the use of humor.  From my experience, I have observed that many members have a common struggle of using humor to make a point, or even just to grab the audience’s attention.  Since I have never attended any TM meetings outside China, I have no basis for a valid comparison.  However, I felt that in many ways, the sense of humor differs between Chinese and Americans; And for the purpose of the article, whether and when humor is deemed appropriate can also differ between the two cultures.   However, I would like to point out some ways in which humor can be used in our speeches that can be valid and appropriate, regardless of culture, or subject.

At the CHIC Toastmasters meetiing, Jan 20, I delivered the speech, “Youthful Mistake” for the Entertaining Speaker Advanced Manual, project #1 (The Entertaining Speech).

For this speech, I wanted to attempt two distinct types of entertainment value:  action oriented humor, and quiet subtle humor.  And not surprisingly, I received mixed reaction accordingly.   I also consciously worked on the pace of my speech: slowing it down to emphasize enunciations, pauses, and vocal variety.  This has always been my weakness, and required special attention to be on par with a professional speaker.  For this article, I will throw out some examples of what I thought worked well to enhance the humor, why it made the audience laugh, and vice versa.  There are 3 lessons I learned: The value of 'Action' humor, the setup of 'understatement humor', and the delivery of subtle humor.