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Published: December 4th 2011
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A few weeks ago, Jane sent out an email saying that the university's English speech team needed a coach. Since I did competitive speaking for three years in high school, public speaking was part of my degree program, and I gave my university's commencement speech, I thought this seemed like a perfect fit! I immediately volunteered for the position. I was later told that doing this would get me out of English corner, which I consider an added bonus.
I met with the team and was delighted to discover that it consists of twenty or so of the brightest, most enthusiastic, and best speaking English majors in our university. The team leaders told me that they are trying to keep it a small group to make sure that only people who want to compete are coming at taking advantage of my coaching. I was grateful for that, since I know there are most likely a few who would like to come to the meetings but then not do anything with the information, wasting my time and the other students'.
The flast week I just introduced myself and asked them what they wanted to learn about. I had no idea
The Speech Team
Out for desserts. their level of speaking, how much experience they have, or what they're concerned about. I want to be sure that whatever I'm teaching them is useful. After compiling a list of their questions and going over a few of the simple ones, I gave them their first task. They needed to write a one minute speech about themselves, telling me something unique about them (to help me learn who they are).
I was pleased with the results. Often, my students are too shy to get up in front of a group of people, but most of the speech team students seemed fairly comfortable even though they were quite nervous.
The this week we met and I decided to teach them how to come up with topic ideas. They've told me that in competition sometimes they are given a topic and have less than a minute to prepare! I showed them a technique I learned when I was in elementry school that allows them to map out their ideas and see where they go, rather than thinking in a linear fashion. If you're trying to figure out a 4 minute speech in less than a minute, you need to be able to consider all your options quickly and be able to decide what's best. Often the first thing a person thinks of is also the first thing everyone else thinks of, too.
I gave them two topics (the US and water), had them draw out the maps, split them into two groups, and then had them each write a one minute speech from one of the maps they'd created. It's amazing the diversity that this techinque gave them. I think they were impressed, too. I was surprised that the speeches on water were more varied than the speeches on the US.
After class the students took me out for desserts at a local restaurant. I was allowed to choose anything I wanted. Since I had no idea what any of it was (but it was all fruity) I asked for help and we all tried several things. It was a fun (and delicious) night out and I'm glad I could spend some time relaxing with them.
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