TED-Ed recently published a new video that addresses the question of why we say “like” and other filler words in our conversations. The video is full of interesting pieces of information about why we use filler words and how they can serve a purpose in conversations. For example, saying “like” is often serving the same purpose as an “um” in conversation. Another neat thing I learned from the video is that a filled pause can help toddlers identify uncommon or new words. The video is titled Why Do We, Like, Hesitate When We, Um, Speak? and you can see it with its associated lesson on this TED-Ed page.
Watching this TED-Ed lesson reminded me of a good tool for practicing presentations so that you don’t use too many filler words. That tool is Microsoft’s Presenter Coach which is available in the online version of PowerPoint. Presenter Coach will give you feedback on the pacing of your presentations, your use of filler words, and your use of sensitive phrases. In this video I demonstrate how to use Presenter Coach in PowerPoint.
