Speaking and Presenting: Poise (Coursera)

Speaking and Presenting: Poise (Coursera)

Poise is not some elusive or innate characteristic. It’s a series of choices, all of which can help you better connect with your intended audience. This course will help you identify those choices and teach you how to consistently make them.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see Coursera's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

What You Will Learn

  • How to hold the attention of a wide range of audiences
  • How to project a powerful combination of confidence, competence, and charisma
  • How to arrange your content in clear, memorable packages
  • How to use a well-tested suite of rhetorical rhythms to enhance your delivery and linguistic sophistication

Course 1 of 4 in the Good with Words: Speaking and Presenting Specialization

Syllabus

WEEK 1
Poise
Poise is not some elusive or innate characteristic. It’s a series of choices, all of which can help you better connect with your intended audience. This course will help you identify those choices and teach you how to consistently make them.

WEEK 2
Teachers, Comedians, and the Perfect Pause
We’ll follow up the “Speaking Stories” we learned about last week with a new, research-filled section called “Speaking Studies.”

WEEK 3
Rhythm: Concept & Stories
People who have taken our companion course Good with Words: Writing and Editing may remember some of the rhetorical moves we’ll be learning about this week, including anaphora, epistrophe, and the Rule of Three. But even if these techniques are new to you, I hope you’ll soon try to incorporate them into your various speaking opportunities. There are good reasons why everyone from John F. Kennedy, to Margaret Thatcher, to Martin Luther King relied on them to get important points across.

WEEK 4
Rhythm: Speaking Studies and Speaking Exercises
Congratulations on making it to the final week of the first course in the series “Good With Words: Speaking and Presenting.” We’ll finish up with some additional material on rhythm and then get a chance to combine rhythm and poise together in a speaking exercise that involves a popular U.S. president, an acclaimed war correspondent, and the 1993 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Speaking to a Technical Group (Coursera) Coursera
University of Colorado Boulder

Speaking to a Technical Group (Coursera)

Great speakers focus on voice, nonverbals, eye contact, body language, and storytelling to captivate their audiences. Moreover, as a leader, it is possible to communicate in such a manner and in such a tone of voice so as to inspire in others nothing but an intense desire to excel, making this form, potentially, the most powerful leadership-communication skill of all. This course focuses on the fundamentals of excellent oral communication.

Jul 7th 2026
4 Weeks
Guitar Scales and Chord Progressions (Coursera) Coursera
Berklee College of Music

Guitar Scales and Chord Progressions (Coursera)

You’ve got the guitar basics down: You can strum your guitar and play a few of your favorite songs, but you’re ready to take the tunes to the next level. In Guitar Scales and Chord Progressions you’ll expand your knowledge of scales, chord fingerings, and common chord progressions. You’ll also learn important skills for soloing, creating melodies, and adding depth and dimension to your guitar playing. This course is not only for the aspiring guitarist who has taken Berklee’s Guitar for Beginners, but also for guitarists who have let their six-string gather dust for too long, and want to brush up on techniques.

Sep 14th 2026
4 Weeks
Tsinghua Chinese: Start Talking with 1.3 Billion People (edX) EdX
Tsinghua University,TsinghuaX

Tsinghua Chinese: Start Talking with 1.3 Billion People (edX)

Beginners' Chinese course from China's top university. This introductory Chinese language course will emphasize basic language skills for everyday life in Mandarin speaking countries. The course utilizes pinyin, the standard system of Romanized spelling for transliterating Chinese, so learners will find it easy to understand and study the language.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Preparing for PTE Academic (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
YouSTUDY International College

Preparing for PTE Academic (FutureLearn)

Develop confidence and prepare for success by understanding the structure and learning outcomes of the PTE Academic test. Pearson Test of English (PTE) Academic is the world’s leading computer-based test of English for study abroad and immigration and is widely accepted by universities, colleges and governments around the world. All test takers should prepare for PTE Academic, even if English is your first language.

Self Paced
4 Weeks
Practise your PTE Academic Speaking Skills (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
Macquarie University,PTE Academic

Practise your PTE Academic Speaking Skills (FutureLearn)

Achieve your desired score in the speaking section of PTE Academic. Learn new skills and strategies and build confidence. Practise and improve your speaking skills for PTE Academic. In this course, we will analyse sample responses from the speaking section of PTE Academic based on oral fluency, content and pronunciation to show how understanding these can lead to success.

Nov 15th 2021
3 Weeks
English for Doing Business in Asia - Speaking (edX) EdX
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology - HKUST,HKUSTx

English for Doing Business in Asia - Speaking (edX)

Introducing strategies for developing your spoken English communication skills in the context of doing business in Asia. The use of English for doing business in multinational settings is a fact of life for many business people. As Asian economies expand and become more involved in the global economy, a lingua franca – a language used to communicate among groups of people who do not share a mother tongue – is needed to exchange information.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Speaking to Inspire: Ceremonial and Motivational Speeches (Coursera) Coursera
University of Washington

Speaking to Inspire: Ceremonial and Motivational Speeches (Coursera)

The most memorable speeches inspire, entertain, and praise. By blending stories and eloquence, great speeches highlight the core values motivating an audience. You might need to do this in a keynote address, a eulogy, or simply a business meeting. Inspiring audiences is a common, but difficult writing challenge. You want a speech that elevates the topic and the audience.

Sep 15th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Speaking and Presenting: Pitches and Persuasion (Coursera) Coursera
University of Michigan

Speaking and Presenting: Pitches and Persuasion (Coursera)

The hope good presenters project when pitching their ideas is not naïve hope. They’re not Pollyanna at the podium. Instead, the solutions they offer are supported by research, data, and expertise. This course will teach you how to merge hard facts with an imaginative vision in a way that at once resonates with and inspires your audience.

Sep 21st 2026
4 Weeks
Teach English Now! Second Language Listening, Speaking, and Pronunciation (Coursera) Coursera
Arizona State University

Teach English Now! Second Language Listening, Speaking, and Pronunciation (Coursera)

In this course, you will be introduced to some of the challenges of teaching and learning listening and speaking, such as paralinguistics, performance variables, reduced and regional forms, and differing types of oral discourse. Don't worry--you'll learn what those mean, too! Then you'll learn how to ease the acquisition of listening and speaking for your students. The course also highlights the powerful opportunity to include pronunciation in listening and speaking classes and offers strategies to incorporate pronunciation activities.

Sep 14th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Speaking Skills for University Success (Coursera) Coursera
University of California, Irvine

Speaking Skills for University Success (Coursera)

As a student in an English-speaking university, you’ll need to speak in many situations, both formal and informal, planned and spontaneous. In this course, you’ll get advice for speaking in many different situations. You’ll learn how to prepare for an academic discussion with classmates and how to lead a discussion effectively. You’ll learn about how to work smoothly in group projects—a popular type of assignment in many university classes—and what to say in small talk with classmates or others.

Sep 14th 2026
4 Weeks
Songwriting: Writing the Music (Coursera) Coursera
Berklee College of Music

Songwriting: Writing the Music (Coursera)

If your notebook is full of unused lyrics and you’re struggling to find inspiration for the music, this course is for you. Whether you are an experienced songwriter looking for new ideas or a beginning songwriter learning to read music, this course will lead you to a rich source of songwriting possibilities. Led by award winning songwriter and Berklee College of Music professor Scarlet Keys, you’ll learn to construct strong, expressive melodies that your audience will remember as well as experiment with new chords to break out of any harmonic rut.

Sep 14th 2026
4 Weeks
Speak English Professionally: In Person, Online & On the Phone (Coursera) Coursera
Georgia Institute of Technology

Speak English Professionally: In Person, Online & On the Phone (Coursera)

Do you want to speak better English? This course will help you reach that goal. Speak English Professionally: In person, Online and On the Phone will boost your English speaking skills. In this 5 week course, you will learn how to identify and make a strong personal introduction. You will develop and demonstrate the speaking skills for group discussions: how to agree or disagree, how to clarify, restate and summarise. You will develop and demonstrate the speaking skills for group discussions: how to agree or disagree, how to clarify, restate and summarize.

Sep 14th 2026
5-12 Weeks