Public Speaking as a school subject

Chookie <ehrebeniuk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <13fti03lcat1461@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Clisby <clisbyw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

(a) public speaking (assuming she didn't have septuplets)

You've mentioned public speaking before. Is this something that
Australian schools do? I have not heard of it before.

They didn't do much public speaking in my day, either, but plainly the
education people in my state have decided to address a lack. There is a whole
strand of the English syllabus called "talking and listening". The idea is to
produce children who can speak in front of a group and who can comprehend oral
as well as written materials. I do not believe any memorisation is required
at this age level.

One Year 1 (=6-7yo) activity I have seen was this: a child gives a short
impromptu talk about something they did on the weekend. One child is asked in
advance to listen for Who was involved, another for Where they went, and so on
-- the usual journalistic questions. After the talk, these children list the
Whos, Wheres etc, while the rest of the class helps when required. The
speakers learn to structure their material and the listeners learn what to
listen for.

This sounds a little like "Show and Tell" which I have heard of. My
children also had to memorize Bible verses etc when they were in first
grade, but this was at a parochial school.

I'm very impressed with the existence of this strand. I did debating, public
speaking and mock trials in high school, but they were voluntary activities.
The mandatory public speaking requirement was negligible -- even in our final
year it was a single 10-minute speech, and that was the top level of the
English syllabus!

Other than reciting poems and some sections from Shakespeare plays
that we memorized, and the infamous 3rd grade parent's night where I
had to recite the nines table, I don't recall any public speaking
requirement when I went to HS (or college either come to that). In
spite of that, I've never had that much problem with public speaking
as an adult.

At my dad's behest, in order to stimulate our imaginations, my mom put
us into CET (Children's Experimental Theatre) where we did periodic
plays in which everyone had a part. In between times we did
improvisational exercises - the leader would give us a scenario, and
we would all have to (without discussion), get up and pretend that we
were people in that scenario. (example - wagon train lost in the
desert). I wasn't too keen on the plays (or the piano and dance
recitals which we also had to do ) but I loved the improvised stuff.

My kids did 'presentations' in 4H (and this was when the youngest was
about 9). They had to organize a talk telling someone how to do
something - bake a cake, hem a dress, clean a horse's stall or
whatever they picked to do. And then they had to give the
presentation, either demonstrating or using posters for illustration.
They were graded on this and given a ribbon. IIRC it was either a
participation ribbon or a first, second or third place ribbon
depending on the quality of the presentation.
.

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