Public speaking skills are developed with practice. Experience gives the speaker confidence and the ability to ad lib. It also helps the speaker develop eloquence and communication skills.
After teaching the students the theories or principles of public speaking like outlining, delivery and aids, the students should be given enough chances to practice public speaking and apply all the theories and guides discussed by their teacher or instructors.
O
nly practice can make perfect, but to be more precise, perfect practice makes perfect. The instructor should monitor the improvement of a student and supervise the activities prepared for them.
Teachers, politicians, corporate employees during presentations or meeting and leaders in various fields, do public speaking all the time. There are many activities for learner to do to enhance their public speaking skills. Here are a few examples, arranged in order of level of expertise:
Beginners Public Speaking:
- Introduction of oneself – there is no easier topic that yourself to talk about with confidence.
- Alphabet recital – recite the alphabet with different emotions, gestures and inflection.
- Completing sentences - teachers can write sentences for students to complete and add more ideas. Examples: I wish I were a ___________, I have a very beautiful _____ and others.
Intermediate Public Speaking:
- Summarizing – a speaker can practice by explaining a story and summarizing it into 10 sentences or less.
- Interviews – can help a student by explaining the answers of the interviewee to the rest of the class.
- News reporting – students can bring news clippings or articles from a magazine and share them with the class.
Advanced Public Speaking Activities:
- Connecting ideas – a speaker will connect two different and unrelated topics through a speech using creativity and imagination.
- Keywords – assigning topics to the speaker using only keywords to help them develop a topic.
Extemporaneous speaking – the speaker will be assigned a topic and will be allowed very little time to prepare a complete speech, with introduction, body and conclusion.
I hope this article gives you some good ideas on public speaking activities you can start with today.
