essay. Developing a Speaking Skills Programme for your Students

Adrian has taught in New Zealand and Australia over the past thirty years. He and Kevin Ryan have developed the Speak Well? Of course you can!!! programme. Schools adopting this highly successful programme have seen very significant improvements in students's speaking skills.

How much skill development do your students receive when asked to present an Oral Presentation? Is there a programme that your students follow to develop their speaking skills? Are teachers equipped with the necessary resources to teach these presentation skills?

The answer to these questions taxed my mind many years ago when an Oral task appeared on the curriculum horizon. Current trends within the NCEA framework include a number of Oral Units which earn various credits. Time pressures and competing interests often mean that there are insufficient lessons to develop the skills of students. I would like to propose a means by which Oral Speaking Skills can be developed.

A developmental Speaking Skills Programme is best implemented in Years 9 and 10 when students are more receptive to curriculum ideas and more time is available in an English Program. It also means that when students come to complete NCEA Units they will be more attuned and knowledgeable when asked to present an Oral Speaking Task.

Teaching Orals in a classroom needs a new shift in thinking. Whenever I start an Oral Task I change the dynamics of the classroom. Desks are moved to the side and chairs are arranged in a semi-circle format. What this shows to the students is that there is something different about learning Speaking Skills.

My initial aim is improve the Impromptu Speaking Skills of my students. Students cannot help become better Prepared Speakers if they become good Impromptu Speakers.

Lesson opening

I spend the first five minutes of each lesson playing one of the many speaking games that can be found in a variety of sources. Three examples to consider are Fortunately/Unfortunately, Round Robin and Name that Star.

Fortunately/Unfortunately starts with the teacher telling a story. For example “As I was driving to school today I was involved in a car accident… Fortunately I was not injured but my car was a mess…. Unfortunately…” you then pass the story on to the first student asking them to start with the word Unfortunately. The story passes around the circle being added to as it progresses and alternates from Fortunately to Unfortunately.

Round Robin is a similar game but with no intention of a coherent flow to the story. The teacher starts the story and moves it around the class controlling the story by saying STOP and the word that the next student must begin with.
For example “Suddenly the the doors "…STOP … doors” the next student must begin their talk with doors… “Doors are meant to be…”, and so on.

I next move on to using Impromptu Speaking in a more structured format. I have found that by teaching students a range of different formulae they can present clear, seemingly structured speeches that have a sense of an Opening a Body and a Conclusion. This formula enables them to place all their energies into thinking about the content and not panic about the structure of what they might say next. These Impromptu Speaking formulae can be started in a small group situation of initially four students and expanded when the students feel comfortable with this style of speaking. I eventually aim at having a student speak to the entire class with no notes or preparation time. The length of time this takes seems to be about 5 to 7 periods.

Lesson Content

The lesson series can now be introduced. A suggested content for these is:
Lesson 1. Speaking Basics — the importance of the Verbal, The Vocal and the Visual.
Lesson 2. Openings and various techniques to gain the listener's attention.
Lesson 3. Conclusions using the material from Openings to create an appropriate conclusion.
Lesson 4. The value of a Speech Plan such as the Three Tales Technique.
Lesson 5. Voice and the main factors in using the voice effectively.
Lesson 6. Gestures and Body language
Lesson 7. Storytelling and why stories are a great addition to any presentation.
Lesson 8. Speaking Devices such as Alliteration, Triplets and Metaphors.
Lesson 9. Use of Speaking Notes
Lesson 10. How to use appropriate Humour in a presentation.

These lessons all have the following elements: Teacher input, Overheads, PowerPoint slides and an Exercise that the students can be given to work on in class.

The lessons are also structured. For example, students are not introduced to every possible Opening or Speaker's Device that they need to know by Years 12 and 13. Rather they can be introduced and added to during Years 9 and 10, re-visited in Year 11 and merely require a short refresher ‘brush-up’ in Years 12 and 13.

So what I am arguing for is that this entire curriculum area of Oral Presentation Skills can be taught systematically, innovatively and developmentally. Content can be taught, skills can be practised and achievement can be noted.

In my experience students taught in this manner change from shy, reluctant speakers to quite confident and well developed speakers.

Finally. The use of Impromptu techniques allied with valid teaching content and exercises to extend students all unite to create a structured and popular approach.