A local academic is researching ways to improve public speaking anxiety after personally struggling with it and identifying a demand among others.
Francis Taman, 62, a Calgary-based master’s student in education at the University of New Brunswick, is recruiting research participants to explore the impact of improv on public speaking anxiety (PSA) in adults.
Scheduled to begin at the end of September, the 11-week study will take the form of a course that teaches participants with mild to moderate levels of PSA improv techniques through warm-ups, games, and group exercises.
Participants will be measured both qualitatively, through interviews and journal entries, and quantitatively, through surveys and questionnaires. The study is expected to be finalized sometime in fall 2027.
Taman said that, research aside, his hope is that participants leave with an improved sense of confidence, provided they complete the course with newfound comfort in verbal fluency, spontaneity, and movement. He said that creating a safe space is his priority.
“The primary concern here is them and their growth,” said Taman.
“The fact that this is my thesis is fine, but my responsibility to them is to give them the best experience possible in the safest place possible.”
While research exists proving that improv can reduce social anxiety, he explained that there is limited research that this can ease speaking anxiety, and since PSA is a sub-type of social anxiety, his study intends to fill this gap.
Taman said one study has suggested there is no significant difference between how people experience excitement and fear — the human body reacts the same way. The only difference, he said, lies in how people interpret their feelings.
This is what Taman’s study seeks to analyze: how can learning these techniques rewrite the way that people classify extreme feelings, thereby lessening their speaking anxiety?
Learning from oneself how to help others
According to a 2025 scholarly article in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, approximately 63 per cent of the general population has reported experiencing some degree of PSA, which is sometimes referred to as glossophobia.
Additionally, the article noted that it typically emerges in adolescence, with 61 percent of college students having named it as their most common fear. The paper continued that PSA “substantially impacts individuals’ quality of life, academic performance, occupational success, and social relationships.”
Taman said he was a shy child growing up, and that if his parents hadn’t advocated for him by enrolling him in the conservatory program at the then-called Mount Royal College as a pre-teen, he might still be a statistic.
He completed the program at 17, becoming well-trained in voice production, diction, and literary interpretation. Taman later earned a degree in political science and history from the University of Calgary.
He taught drama at the conservatory for some time, but his improv journey started in the late 1980s in the rural hamlet of Cessford, Alta., where he taught children for three years. Eventually, Taman switched gears and became a lawyer, a career he has held for the last 30 years.
In between, he taught communication-related courses at various post-secondary schools, using the techniques he learned as a mediator. Taman’s improv background never left him, though, and he later started his own troupe that performed at the Fringe Theatre in Edmonton.
It was when he met other people who were experiencing speaking anxiety, coupled with his own history, that Taman researched the ailment and found little progress since he first entered the realm. The impact that this could have on people is what brought him to pursue his master’s.
“There are so many things in our life that have an aspect of this to it,” said Taman.
“It interferes with them really recognizing how wonderful they are as people, as human beings.”
Anyone local to Calgary who is interested in participating in the study can submit an application online at https://www.improvstudy.ca/.
