Have you ever wondered what makes some people effective public speakers? What is that magic ingredient that gives a person that certain something when they open their mouth to speak?
At Swift Tutors, Wolverhampton recently four of my KS2 and KS3 pupils embarked on a nerve wracking oratory adventure. Two separate role plays evolved, one was interviewing Scott of the Antarctic on the radio, the second involved two science students interviewing one another one in the roles of Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein.
Speaking with eloquence, confidence, clarity and being engaging will really help transform reluctant speakers into students who can hold their own in debates, excel at job, college, apprenticeship and university interviews. These transferable skills will create a huge impact on their immediate and long term future career paths.
For the students the results of these learning activities were surprising, enriching and informative:
firstly, they discovered some interesting aspects in their own self development as writers, creators and speakers
secondly, they had to identify 3 areas of self improvement and 3 target areas for their peers
the benefits of doing this activity really helped them to focus, engage deeply with the task and playback their own performance
this activity fostered an ability to spot areas for improvement
develop a wider more impressive and varied lexis by using synonyms to avoid repetition of bland words like ‘nice …good … very …bad’ and replacing them with better words like ‘captivating… transformational …empowering … enthralling … scintillating … hazardous … challenging’
include a powerful, sophisticated range of connectives to replace overuse of ‘and’ and ‘but’
avoid slouching
maintain a clear
open eye contact
avoid reading from notes too much
speak with clarity and consider pace and the need for pauses
listen attentively and wait for the other speaker to finish
You may think this is about having a sense of presence, the X factor or some other elusive quality that makes them an eloquent and articulate orator, public speaker or conversationalist.
At Swift Tutors we believe that developing excellent speaking skills is much more powerful and useful; we also know that then benefits of honing this skill reach far beyond the task within the realm of the classroom.