{"id":105,"date":"2007-09-08T06:47:20","date_gmt":"2007-09-08T13:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/blog\/resources-for-teaching-public-speaking"},"modified":"2016-10-01T14:47:45","modified_gmt":"2016-10-01T21:47:45","slug":"resources-for-teaching-public-speaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/blog\/resources-for-teaching-public-speaking","title":{"rendered":"Resources for Teaching Public Speaking"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chaleygirl, a 41-year veteran of teaching who is starting a new position asks<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Can you steer me towards any good ways of teaching speech? I want my students to have my opportunities to speak in class, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to bore them with gobs of notes on pronunciation, articulation, correct breathing techniques, etc. I want them to find joy in the spoken word as I see joy in literary works. Any help would be appreciated.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First, congratulations on 41 years! I work in a Catholic school with a colleague who retired from the public system after 30 years and who’s approaching 40 years of teaching. We are very privileged to have his wisdom, experience and joy for teaching–I’m sure your new school must feel the same way.<\/p>\n

I don’t have as much experience teaching speech as I do with literature, but I’ll give it my best shot and ask readers to add their suggestions.<\/p>\n

I’m going to approach this by listing some public speaking activities I’m familiar with that have been useful to me and other teachers in getting students to speak comfortably and confidently in front of others. They’re not listed in any particular order.<\/p>\n

Wax Museum<\/strong><\/p>\n

The teacher I mentioned earlier does a wax museum project every year with the seventh graders. The students choose a person of historical importance and research their life story, producing a biographical paper in MLA format. They then condense their research into a short (60 second?) speech in first person which they memorize.<\/p>\n

The seventh graders then dress up as their subject and present their speeches to the entire school body, like a living wax museum. The entire project takes around two to three weeks, if I remember correctly.<\/p>\n

Impromptu Speaking<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is an activity that gives students practice in thinking on their feet in addition to getting them to speak publicly. I usually do a two-week unit on impromptu speaking just before Christmas. Students are given a topic, and they have 5 minutes total to prepare and deliver a speech on that topic. I usually recommend that they prepare for one minute and speak for four minutes.<\/p>\n

Last year, Samantha, a former student of mine, asked if she and some of her high school classmates could teach my class about impromptu speaking. Samantha’s school was sponsoring a junior high speech tournament and she wanted to encourage my students to participate. She and her classmates did a fantastic job, and the students enjoyed learning from high school students.<\/p>\n

Here are some web resources that I use when I teach impromptu speaking:<\/p>\n