Public Speaking: It's Not Just For Campaigns Anymore, Dammit.

I’ll just say it: public speaking is a lost art form.  

If you disagree with me, that’s fine.  But hear me out.

My entire life, I have been well aware of the need for strong public speakers.  My parents are both educators, so expressing that “I don’t want to talk in front of people.  It’s scary and makes me too nervous” just was not acceptable conversation at our dinner table.  My siblings and I were always encouraged to try out for the school plays, sing at church, participate in forensics and debate—anything that involved getting up and speaking in front of people.  Furthermore, my parents were always commenting on the effectiveness of key political figures, preachers, administrators—anyone whose job it was to speak publicly, and often.  Public speaking was, to say the least, a perpetual conversation topic in my household.

That being said, I am amazed (and not in a good way) at how many of our students have sub-par to poor public speaking skills.  

And I am not just talking about ESOL/ELL students.  So calm down.

I am talking about students from all backgrounds.  

This past weekend, I was able to judge Senior Project presentations at my school.  I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the vast array of student work—projects ranging from auto repair to fire safety to cardiac nurse to cosmetology.  The students at my high school are undoubtedly very talented, and many have high post-high school career aspirations.  

However, the one disturbing trend I routinely noticed among the presenters was that their public speaking skills are severely lacking.

I frequently wrote down the following comments on students’ scoring rubrics:

 

* You need to slow down.

* You need to speak louder.

* Please enunciate your words.

* Please do not mumble.

* Be enthusiastic about what you’re telling me!

* Try making more eye contact with your audience—it strengthens your presentation.

* Please do not read directly from your PowerPoint—paraphrase your main points.

* Try incorporating note cards to help you remember where you’re going in your speech.

 

You get the idea.

I was so disheartened by this demonstration of poor public speaking skills.

I can dwell on this.  

But what good would that do?

Or I can purpose to do something about it.

Regardless of the need for improvement in many students’ speaking skills, there are certain facets of public speaking that are universal (and rightly expected, by both the student and the audience).  People get nervous.  They sweat.  Their stomachs ache.  They forget their note cards.  They talk too fast.  They stumble over their words.  

Again, you get the point.

However, these mishaps are totally forgivable—students are only human, after all.

Yet there has to be something we as teachers can do to help instill better speaking skills in all of our students.  We need to strengthen our curriculums so that Senior Project Presentation Day (or any equivalent) is NOT the first (or only) time our students speak in front of an audience.  

And where do we need to start?

In our own classrooms, of course.

In The English Teacher’s Companion (1999), Richard Burke stresses that, “In a high school English class, students can and should be asked to do a wide range of different kinds of speaking, some of which are formal and involve the whole class, and other types of which are informal and involve a small group or an individual” (Burke 212).  The author goes on to list a wonderful reference list of activities, ranging from book talks to interviews to storytelling (Burke 212).  In my opinion, exposing students to a wide variety of in-class speaking activities will better equip students to speak in front of large groups of people.  Furthermore, we might even collaborate with other teachers and combine classes for a cross-class speaking exercise.  Students do need to learn to be comfortable speaking in front of people other than their immediate peers.  We can facilitate that.

If we give our students daily practice at public speaking—whether it be in the form of think-alouds or storytelling or Readers’ Theatre—we will, step by step, increase their confidence in themselves.  

So let’s think about this:

180 (ish) days of classes a year + five (ish) different classes a day + virtually endless activities and exercises to strengthen students’ comprehension, skills, and confidence = TONS AND TONS OF OPPORTUNITIES.  WITH ZERO EXCUSES.

(**Note: the aforementioned equation perhaps should have been determined using multiplication.  Whatever.  Math isn’t my forte.  I’m an English major.)

My goal is this: that student be given daily opportunity to speak out loud.  Every student.  Every day.  The loud, eager students.  And the quiet, shy students.  This way, by the time their Senior Project presentation has arrived, they will all have had ample time and practice.  Essentially, students’ Senior Project presentations (or the equivalent) should be the pinnacle of their public speaking experiences, rather than a fumbling unveiling of sub-par skills and confidence that we should have spent four years helping them improve upon.

So my question to you is this:

How else can we help our students practice such vital speaking skills?  Whether or not our students realize (or wish to acknowledge) this, the “real world” wants people who communicate strongly and effectively.  Employers want people who are confident in their ability to interconnect with people.  There is simply no way around this.  We owe it to our students to make them understand this.  

 Burke, Jim. The English Teacher's Companion: A Complete Guide to Classroom, Curriculum, and the Profession. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1999. Print.