Words tripping off the tongue

Creating confidence in public speaking across the curriculum

ARTICLE DISPONIBLE EN VERSION FRANÇAISE VIA CE LIEN

I am a language teacher. Using or working on oral expression has been part of my daily routine for longer than I can remember. However, oral expression and, more generally, the ability to speak in public about specific topics are now recognized as a key elements to teaching and testing across the curriculum, so teachers of all classroom subjects are having to help learners develop their ability to present information orally.

Wouldn’t it be nice to see students naturally capable of taking 20 minutes to prepare, say, a 5-minute talk in front of the class in answer to a thought-provoking question, and then be able to take a further few minutes taking in questions from the audience on certain points raised? In practice, we discover that students in any given class are in very different places on the learning curve as regards successful public speaking : at one end, some are able to speak fluently from notes in instructive, original and entertaining ways; somewhere in the middle, others will simply read aloud their written preparation, unable to look at the audience in the eye; somewhere near the other end, there will be students who will start out fine but then panic and seem lost, not even know how to answer helpful questions they may be asked to help them get going again.

What do they have to say for themselves about this experience?

Afraid of speaking in public

Surprisingly, the very same people who get tongue-tied when they find themselves in the spotlight have lots to say about why they find public speaking so difficult. Here’s a sample of things they say.

“I don’t like the sound of my voice.”

“I am afraid of speaking in public.”

“I stress when speaking in front of an audience. Everybody is looking at me.”

“I get the feeling people expect something from me that I can’t possibly give them.”

“I know that I’m supposed to speak from notes without continually reading, but nobody has told me how.”

“I really admire people who know how to speak in public. I’m a million miles from being able to do that.”

These comments touch on voice confrontation, anticipatory anxiety, listener expectations, content organisation, performance management, learning to be confident and an overall desire to improve. Education is about initiating change and fostering development, so who wants to leave things the way they are?

How can we find appropriate activities to train people who speak well to speak better, and those who feel fear to speak more confidently? Waiting until someone gives you the activities you need for working on oral expression in your classes may mean waiting a long time. It can feel like Waiting for Godot. Or you can do something to help yourself – which is precisely what I decided to do.

Our students point us in the right direction

I think our students are the ones who best show us the way forward. They are constantly pointing us in the direction we need to go, and the way they express their difficulties and describe the challenges they face is a constant source of inspiration.

For a long time, when people said “I don’t like the sound of my voice”, I would answer with something along the lines of : “Yes, well, it is a problem. Just don’t think about it too much. Focus on the content. It’ll be fine.” Then suddenly, one day, I said : “How can you learn to accept the sound of your own voice?” There, I had a methodological question I could work on.

I also found the same thing happened the next time I heard “I’m afraid of speaking in public”. Instead of simply reassuring the person that I was sure they’d be fine, I thought : “What happens to us when we anticipate having to do something challenging?” Again, the focus was clearer.

Using things students say to create teaching options

In the months ahead, I’ll use the title Words Tripping Off The Tongue to share idea as to how we can work from the statements made by students about their difficulties in speaking to an audience – even a small one – to create teaching options.

Articles currently available in this series can be found HERE.

Hopefully, these suggestions will be useful both as classroom activities on oral expression in their own right and as examples of the process they reveal which is essential to increasing teacher autonomy and development : whenever we start from things students say, and are able to use them to identify teaching options, we discover new ways of teaching.