PUBLIC SPEAKING LESSON 12
PublicSpeaking Lesson
Publicspeaking lesson
Theprimary objective of this lesson is tointroduce students to public speaking. Apart from being examined,students are also required to express their understanding inpractical experiments like data analysis, participate in writing andreciting speeches and also combine actions and with expressions.The lesson aims at educating young adults on ways they can relatevarious aspects of English language including listening, speaking,observation and writing so as to be able to write and deliver aspeech in public.
Otherobjectives of this lesson are as follows:
To master the art of speech delivery without the use of any written material.
To teach the students on how they can use the English language not only in class but also in their daily life undertakings and arguments.
To inform the students about various careers that they can venture in that require taught English language skills and speech fluency.
To teach the students on how they may use the English language taught in class for their personal development.
Prepare the students on how they can use the English language for analysis and synthesis in their daily lives.
To teach the students in ways that they may use to write and deliver relevant and persuasive speeches.
The importance of giving speeches in public to the development of the students’ career in English.
How fight factors such as anxiety, restlessness, and panics during speech delivery.
The roles of thinking outside the box and creativity during a public speech delivery.
Forthis lesson, we will assume that the total number of students is 24.The population comes from different regions with various cultures,beliefs, and histories and this makesit necessary to use teaching methods that meet this dynamicenvironment. Thisstudy willbe substantial since public speech delivery isdonein setting with people from differentareasand cultures. The class will be likely to take long because ofpractical activities, hencescheduling itfor a Friday afternoon.
Beforethe kick-off of this class, I will do the following as ways of coursemanagement:
The learning materials are available in class and readily accessible. The materials include reference books, the video clips, and students’ notebooks.
The desks and chairs in the classroom are in a manner that makes mobility easy that I can walk to every student and check each learner’s work. Also, this will make it easy for scholars to disperse to their groups of study.
Use my communication skills and physical assistance to students in reading and arrangement so that they may be free to me as their teacher.
After preparation, the students are quiet and ready to learn.
Thefollowing are the instructions that will guide the scholarsthroughout this lesson.
All students have to participate in their respective groups.
No talking to each other when the teacher is teaching.
A student must seek permission from the teacher in a case where he or she wants to get out of the class.
The scholars must observe recommended safety when using electronics.
The students are not expected to carry or eat anything while in class.
The learners must not take more than five minutes when delivering speeches.
The students must bring copies of appointment notes with the students’ counselor in the next class.
Students are expected to recite memorized speech and not use any written material.
Someof the requirement required for this lesson will include:
The video clips of the different fluent speaker who have lived presently or recent past.
Audio clips of good public speakers who currently live.
Video comedy clips.
Other things that will be required for this study include the class English course book, chalk, a DVD player and stereo speakers.
Thereference book to be used by the students during this study will be‘Confession of public speaker’ by Scott Berkun.
Thisbook will be substantial because it favors all levels of speechdevelopment from children to adult. It gives lessons on aspects ofspeech such as anxiety, restlessness, tension and how to overcomethem during speech delivery.
Thebook uses a simple language that is easy to understand by allcategories of students. Finally, the book accompanies its samplespeeches with relevant pictures that can be utilized by students toinstill their understanding (Berkun,S, 2009).
Tomaximize participation of the students, I will require them to getdivided into groups of four. I will not participate in dividing thestudents into groups because there exist natural groups among thestudents that will act as default study groups.
Theabove requirements will be substantial because the students will berequired to learn from actions as well as speech. Other important ofspeech aspects such as the speakers’ outfits and body languages arealso revealedin the video. These factors are very vital in speech delivery andhave a high level of influence to the concertation of the audience.
Thefirst activity to meet the above objectives will be to subjectlearners to various video clips of a good public speaker like thePresident Barrack Obama’s speeches. From the speaking, they will beable to find different themes for the speech which they will notedown. I will also provide clips for videos for those with weakpublic statements.They will be required to note down the difference between the twoexpressions.I will do this before giving the students any theory on the subjectso as to find out if they have any background in public speechdelivery. The students will respond to the following questions afterwatching the video clips:
Was the speaker intelligent?
What are the reasons for the above answer?
Were the speakers’ outfits relevant to the topic of their speeches?
What do you think the speaker could have done better?
Do you consider factors such as audibility, nervousness, and attitude affect speaker’s speech delivery?
How is the speaker different from other orator you have ever heard their statements?
How can the audience influence the manner in which a speaker delivers his speech?
Fromthe theory, the students will also beintroducedto professions that involve speech delivery such as teaching,mentorship, politics, acting and comedy. I will use my example as ateacher to tell the students how speech delivery skills haveinfluenced my teaching career. These careers do not only requireEnglish skills, but I will also go ahead and explain to the students,other abilities that can be combined with English skills to make oneeither be a teacher, comedian or politicians among other professionsthat require public speaking skills. I will tell students the role ofpsychology in the speech delivery process.
Thesecond event that will be related to the first will be to give abrief theoretical introduction of public speaking. Itwillentail definitions of public speaking, different types of speakersand skills required to hold such speeches. The students will refer tothe notes they collected from the video clips earlier provided tofind differences in the speaker and match their skills with thosethat aretaughtin class at an individual level. The process will bedonein question and answer format, and the students will be selected atrandom to give answers.
Thetheory will contain the following as notes:
Speechdelivery skills
Beorganized – the speaker should be well conversant with the topic ofhis speech and expect challenges from the audience regarding thesubject of his speech. Organization should also beseenin the speech where the flow of the talking is supposed to beregular from the introductionto conclusion.
Be clear- do not use ambiguous terms that have hidden meanings and hard pronunciations.
Be direct- this can be applied by eye contact with the audience. While delivering the speech, make sure you look at everybody and not one individual.
Be vocal- the audience should not struggle to get what you say during speech delivery. It is one way of attracting their attentions.
Be yourself- when delivering a speech, do not try to use somebody else’s intonation and voice, you will not be perfect.
Dress well- the speaker’s outfits must match with the theme of the speech. Also, audience develops attitudes towards speakers from their outfits. Therefore, as a public speaker, you have to dress neatly and officially.
Be punctual- the audience should not wait for the speaker for a long time before the speaker appears for the speech. Time is an important factor while delivering speeches. Hence affects the concentration of the audience and also shows the level of seriousness of the speaker. It also means that the speech should not be too long.
Read the psychology of the audience- boredom is likely to find its ways into your speech if you do not concentrate on your audience. One of the methods a speaker can use to maintain the attention of his listeners towards to the speech is direct involvement. The speaker here, ask direct questions to the audience and they respond back.
Make it funny- most people are attracted to speeches because of the funny quotes in the speeches. It eradicates boredom and also encourages interaction. However, when deciding on funny quotes, let them not be those that are likely to insult the audience. You should have it in mind that the public have different cultures and varying levels of understanding.
Afterthe theory, the students will go back to their groups of three andform different types of short speeches on themes of their choices.
Thisis a mixed ability class,and so I will use the following teaching methods:
Pair work
Iwill matchstudents with similar characters and abilities. Those who tend to beslow learners will begroupedtogether, those who tend to have low self-esteem will also be pairedtogether because they better understand themselves in these groups.Itwillbe very easy because there exist natural groups among the students.
Group work.
Iwill divide students into groups from where they will decide on oneindividual to recite a short speech before the class. They will,therefore, takea decision on thetopic, discuss it and present it. The groups must have leaders whoare to report on to me on the progress on the assignment and also thechallenges they face as far as the assignment is concerned.
Whole class mingles.
Thewhole class will cometogetherafter video analysis where the groups will share findings amongthemselves. Also, this will take place during speech delivery wherethe class will be an audience to the groups` speakers.
Tomeet the objectives for this course, I will adapt the use of schoolstudents’ counselor to monitor the speech development progress ofthe learners. Itisa professional whose career isbuilton good speech delivery. I will require the students to report,interview, and also tell him different challenges they face. Thecounselor will do the following:
Evaluate the speech development of students through reporting and listening.
Advise the students on other careers that are in line with speech delivery and discipline that can be combined with English for the given careers.
Guide individual students of the rules speech in solving problems and social relations.
The counselor will boost the students’ ego by motivating them on the day to day challenges that make them look down upon themselves.
The psychologist will act as an audience who will listen to the students without any bias with the aim of educating them or solving their problems.
Involvingthe students’ counselorwill be substantialbecause:
He is a professional whose career is connected to speech delivery.
He is a qualified professional in psychology, and this keeps him in a position to know the cognitive strengths and weaknesses of the students that are very vital in speech formation and delivery.
The students tend to be free with the therapist than teachers. It will be high aspect because the scholars will find the opportunity of speaking their challenges in speech delivery.
The psychoanalyst will increase the morale of student by advice this is vital when delivering the speech.
Somechallenges connectto the option of involving peer counselor. These challenges are:
Monitoring problem- the students may only go to the counselor once or twice, and this will make it hard for him to monitor their progress as far as speech formation and delivery are concerned.
Appointments- to visit the school psychotherapist, the student will be required to book a meeting with him hence wasting time and may demoralize students.
Reporting- it will be hard for the counselor to report to me as the teacher on the progress of the students in speech formation and delivery. The reason for this being that is not his roles.
Iwill omit the written examination test for this study. Speechformation is something practical and not theory. To promote criticalthinking and creativity, I will not allow learnersto use written statements.The following are the problems concerned with written expressions:
It is hard to attract the attention of the audience when reading a report.
Aspects of speech such as body language and tonal variation are hard to incorporate in speeches when reading the oration
Written statements are contextual and may not address the needs of the audience at the point of speech delivery.
Takes a lot of time and money to develop and hence cannot be used in emergency cases.
In speeches where there is a dialogue, written statements are not used.
Thefinal activity is to evaluate thestudents. I will measure each student at the individuallevel by asking each to form simple speeches on their topics andrecite them before the class. Some of the methods that I will use toreduce test anxiety of the students includes:
Useof group discussions. The students will discuss the study questionsgiven and select one of them to present responses before the class.To make sure that all members of the group participate, I will pose aquestion randomly to any member of the groups for an answer. If thestudent becomes unable to respond, he will get a fail mark in his orher script.
Thesecond test activity will use charts where students will record theiranswers. The first question on the chartcontains answers that guide the students on how to respond to othersubsequent questions. Itisa socrativeapproach example.
Thetable below is a sample of that will beutilized for this study.
|
Question |
Response |
|
State two qualities of a good public speaker. |
Organized Direct |
|
Name three career options that someone with excellent speaking skills may venture in. |
|
|
State two factors that influence the way a speaker delivers his speech. |
|
|
What makes some statements interesting that others? |
Thefinal test activity I will use of polls. The students will vote onthe option they prefer in the evaluation. Itmaybeaccompaniedbythe use of questions with choice or true and false answers. Example
Is audibility a public speaking skill? True, False.
Can you capture the audience attention with eye contact? True, False.
Is teaching profession that requires public speaking skills? True, False.
Inconclusion, speech development skills are obtained in early stages ofeducation and become fundamental in the development of other academicprospects. A good speech is one that is persuasive, direct to thepoint and humorous. Speakers are urged to use non-verbal cues thatmay help different categories of the audience including the deaf toget their speeches. A public speech lesson is purely practical,and therefore, every student is expected to participate fully.
Reference
Berkun,S. (2009). Confessionsof a public speaker." O`Reilly Media, Inc.".
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