I heard this many times: "When you face your audience, pretend they are animals, babies, naked, none existent, etc."

Although these clearly ill advices were allegedly meant to help speakers overcome fear and nervousness, they give us an idea of how far some speakers are ready to go in considering their listeners.

Nevertheless, no speaker will ever admit that he or she looks at their listeners in any of the ways mentioned above. I'm sure not, not nowadays; otherwise, this speaker has no place on the platform, and should never have.

In order for a contestant to participate in the Toastmaster's International Speech competition, he/she has to be eligible which means he/she must be a member of Toastmasters International, an active member of a TM club and have completed 6 speech projects from the basic communication and leadership manual.

The levels of the competition are as follows: