Jumat, 15 Mei 2009

Public Speaking Class Resources

Tips for persuasive speech topics, informative speeches, and more Public speaking is not everybody's favorite class. Most students have a fear of public speaking and come into class the first day thinking it's going to be painful. However, public speaking skills are very important in the working world, so taking a public speaking course in college can be beneficial to just about everybody. I taught public speaking to college students for many years, and trust me, it doesn't have to be painful. And here's a little secret: if you follow instructions and listen to your instructor's feedback, getting a good grade in public speaking is not hard! Most instructors have sympathy for public speaking students and grade their speeches with some leniency. Here are some tips for doing well in a public speaking class: Read the assignment sheets carefully. Public speaking instructors usually give very specific criteria, including how many sources you have to include and how many visual aids to use. Be sure you understand all the criteria and follow the instructions carefully in your speech. Remember, delivery isn't everything. Delivery is how you use your voice and body to present the speech to an audience. This is important. However, students sometimes place too much importance on delivery and not enough on the content of the speech. The speech needs to be well written and interesting. Choose interesting topics. Brainstorm to find interesting topics that haven't been overused. (Here's some help with how to choose a great topic for a persuasive speech and tired persuasive speech topics to avoid.) Also, make sure your topic is appropriate for the assignment. If you're not sure, ask. Practice. An absolute must. Practice your speeches at least three times before you deliver them in class. I'm not kidding. Practice and time yourself. When you practice, make sure you're within the assigned time limit. If you are not, fix your speech until you are. Write a great speech outline. Your instructor will require you to write a detailed outline before you give your speech. This is not busywork! One of the biggest problems students have with speeches is organization. Your outline will help you organize your speech. Use great visual aids. First of all, your visual aids have to be easy to see and look professional. But perhaps more importantly, your visual aids need to help convey the ideas of the speech. A list of your three main points isn't a very useful visual aid because it doesn't demonstrate anything. Speak loudly and slowly. By far, this is the most common problem that students have with delivery. Unless you are told otherwise, do not read your speech word for word. Students often do this because they are nervous. Unfortunately, reading a speech word for word is a terrible way to establish good rapport with the audience. Use sources to increase your credibility. When you cite a source, be sure to tell the audience who the source is and why your source is trustworthy. For example, if you're giving a speech about lung cancer, say, "According to Dr. Jane Doe, Vice President of the American Lung Association...." Give information and examples in your speech that the audience can relate to. An example: when I taught in Minnesota, a student gave a speech about the need for better public transportation, and she wanted to use an overhead of a traffic jam in California, where she was from. I suggested she use a more local overhead. So she did, and showed the class an overhead of a traffic jam on I-94, which ran through campus. Everyone could relate.

Public Speaking Peer Evaluations

If you're teaching a public speaking class, you know that being a great speaker is about more than just what you sound like in the front of the room. It's about knowing what makes a good speech and what makes a poor speech-- and being able to incorporate these ideas into your own work. Whether you're teaching middle, high school, or college students, you need to be able to teach your students how to analyze other speeches effectively. One great way to do this is to play examples of great public speeches in your class and have your students discuss them. However, you also have a great source of sample speeches for your students to analyze right in your classroom-- their peers' speeches! By listening to the work of their peers and evaluating good points and bad points, they have to think critically about the criteria for the assignment and the qualities of an excellent speech. In addition, they also have to work on their listening skills-- an area in which most students in this high-tech world need practice. Public Speaking Peer Evaluation Comparison Papers For this paper, have students compare at least two of their fellow students' speeches-- one they feel is fairly strong, and one they feel is fairly weak. Alternately, you can also assign a third speech that they feel is of average quality. Another option is to assign students to evaluate their own speech and to compare it to 1-3 of their classmate's speeches. If you want, you can build requirements into this speech that make it necessary for students to be in attendance and paying attention. For example, you can require that students analyze three speeches that are given during three different class periods. Of course, it goes without saying that this assignment needs to be anonymous. Assure your students that no one but you will see the contents of this paper, and stick to that. Nonetheless, you'll want to discourage your students from using this as an opportunity to write nasty things about their peers. This assignment needs to be guided by a list of specific questions. If you ask your students to evaluate each other's speeches without asking them to evaluate specific criteria, many of them will only pay attention to delivery. The questions you ask will vary based on the level of student, and will also vary depending on what you are emphasizing most on this assignment. Here are some of the questions you might ask

How to Teach Speaking

A new teacher who has been observing some of my classes lately as part of her ESL Teacher training asked me this question the other day: "How do I teach speaking?". At first I thought it was a joke question, because to me the answer seemed so simple, but when I realized that it was a serious question, I had to stop and think about if for a second. At first glance, teaching speaking simply involves providing your students with as many chances to speak as is possible - sometimes in a controlled context, and sometimes in a free context. The first thing to keep in mind is that when we are helping our language students learn to speak English, we are not actually teaching them to speak. Unless they are infants, they already know how to do that. What we are really helping them with falls into three categories improving fluency (speaking smoothly) improving pronunciation (saying words properly) improving enunciation (Saying words/phrases clearly - I think this includes word and sentence intonation) Some would say that vocabulary, grammar, and cultural usage also fall into how we teach speaking, but I'd say that while they are critical, they are not only in the domain of speaking. Speaking is about using our mouth and vocal cords to make sounds that people understand as language. It certainly involves other elements like grammar and vocabulary, but they aren't the core of it. So, back to the main question of how to teach speaking. Let's look at each of the three elements I mentioned above Improving Fluency Fluency comes from practice - plain and simple. However it needs to be practice that involves extended use of the language and use of extended sentences. You can not build fluency by repeating single words or short phrases. Fluency at its heart relates to being able to speak for longer periods of time in a smooth way. Broadly speaking, here are a few things that can help build fluency: speeches or presentations group discussions role plays negotiations and debates interviews and meetings chatting in small groups Improving Pronunciation Pronunciation is the ability to say words properly with the correct sounds in the correct places. This is a skill that can take a VERY long to develop, but with consistent work and practice, it can be done. There are two keys to proper pronunciation 1) tons of native speaker input and 2) tons of speaking by the learner with native speakers. However, practice and lessons that target specific trouble areas can make a huge difference in a student's ability to deal with issues in pronunciation. working on specific vowels working on trouble consonants (e.g. th for French speakers) working on understanding movement and location of mouth and tongue when making sounds Improving Enunciation Enunciation is speaking clearly - perhaps better understood by its opposite which is mumbling or slurring words. Enunciation is a very important aspect of speaking in that poor enunciation can make someone almost impossible to understand. Again improvements in enunciation come from exposure to native speakers, and plenty of natural practice. Of course focused work targeting problem areas can help a great deal as well. Things that can be done to help with enunciation include: focused work on trouble word combinations working on reductions (want to –> wanna) working on sentence level stress points working on word level stress points (e.g. differences between noun/verb forms of same word record/record) working on sentence level intonation patterns As you may have noticed I haven't provided any specific lesson ideas on how to teach speaking. There are literally hundreds of different activities that you can use in myraid different situations. There isn't one right way, or even one right sequence. Just be sure to give your students plenty of time for talking freely, supplement this with targeted exercises and practice, and actively encourage your students to listen to and speak with as many native speakers as they possibly can on a regular basis.