公共英语演讲 教案

Introduction to the Course – Public Speaking

Good ladies, morning and gentlemen. What’s wrong? Did you realize I just made a mistake in my greeting? You may wonder why I would make such a silly mistake. You tell me why. Well, I was kind of nervous. Now you may wonder how come a teacher of my age would feel nervous facing the students. To tell you the truth, all the public speakers, including most eloquent ones like Barak Obama, Ronald Reagan, would feel nervous on the stage. And more often than not, nervousness may well make speakers commit silly blunders. This is caused by what we call stage fright/fear.

As a veteran teacher of English I find Chinese students usually feel reluctant to make a public speech whether in Chinese or in English. The main reason for this is Stage Fright, because they are not or less trained in delivering a public speech. You may have the impression that foreigners especially Americans are good at talking, particularly in public. This is because Public Speaking is a compulsory course in most of the American universities. As a matter of fact, kids are encouraged to make presentations in class even in their primary schools. So to help you overcome this barrier, we opened this course four years ago and this is the fifth round.

For the next 30 minutes, I’d like to specify 4 things related to the course. They are five purposes of opening this course; the way the class will be conducted and the teaching schedule; the requirements for you to meet; and the composition of the final score.

Let’s start with the five purposes,the first of which is to help you acquire the basic skills in preparing and delivering a speech effectively. There are nine things to keep in mind in this regard.

1. How to choose a topic. If it is a classroom presentation and your

audiences are your fellow students, you need to select an appropriate topic to attract them. But in future you don’t have to choose a topic as, most likely, you will be asked to talk about a particular subject, unless you want to enter for a speech contest.

2. How to write an outline of a speech. Actually in most cases you are

supposed to write two outlines, one is called preparation outline, which is more detailed and is done for the writing of your speech; the other is called speaking outline, which is brief and used for the delivery of your speech.

3. How to organize a speech. In organizing a speech you need to know

what to say in the introduction, how to balance the main points in the body and what to say in the conclusion.

4. How to make your vocal language more effective. You have to watch

five aspects: pronunciation, vocal variety, rhythm, fluency, and volume.

5. How to use verbal language effectively. In this aspect, you will learn to

make good choice of words, and use appropriate grammar and rhetorical devices.

6. How to use non-verbal language effectively. This includes such

elements as eye contact, facial expression, gestures, and posture.

Among these, eye contact is the most important.

7. How to use visual aids in an effective way. For visual aids, you are

supposed to use ppt. only, and occasionally a short video clip which

should last no longer than 1 minute.

8. How to practice and rehearse for a speech. Enough practice and

rehearsal will ensure you a successful speech.

9. How to prepare answers to possible questions from the audience. After

the speech, the speaker should be ready to take questions from the

audience. The speaker should prepare answers to possible questions

before delivering the speech.

The second purpose is to help you find and then overcome your problems in making a public speech. As some of you might already have known, our course is practice-oriented, which means you are supposed to make a lot of presentations after learning the theory and watching samples. However, for most of the time you will be audience only. As audience, you will find the problems of the speakers as it’s human nature to find faults with others.

I want you to be particular or picky while listening and get ready to make comments. By analyzing the speeches of others, you will consciously avoid similar mistakes in your own performance and consequently perfect your own speeches.

Now let’s come to the third purpose, which is to help you overcome stage fear. Stage fear ranks very high on the list of all fears according to some statistics. I remember reading an article saying the stage fear ranks the second among all the human fears. As I said in the introduction, everyone has stage fright, no matter how experienced he/she is. In other words, it’s perfectly normal to feel nervous when standing on a platform facing a relatively large audience. To overcome stage fear, there are at least five effective ways, namely, acquiring speaking experience, making full preparation, thinking positively, using the power of visualization and not expecting perfection. Although this course only allows you two opportunities for practice in class, you will have to practice dozens of times outside the classroom before each presentation. Whether you can do a good speech in class largely depends on how well you practice before the class. Full preparation includes the preparation of the outline, the speech draft, the practice and rehearsal with the help of speaking outline. When you are actually standing on the platform, tell yourself “I can do it, I will make it,” instead of saying either to yourself or to the class, “I am too nervous. I will not be able to make it”You should visualize yourself as a successful speaker, with the audience applauding and cheering. Lastly, never expect to be perfect. Nothing is perfect, no one is perfect. In other words, tolerate your shortcomings and occasional errors. Remember your actual performances usually will not surpass your practice in rehearsal.

Purpose number four is to help you prepare for your future academic and professional life. Some day you will come across the situations where you are required to make a public speech whether you stay in school or work in other social institutions. For now, classroom presentations are what you face while you are in college. And seminars and symposiums are occasions for your

future academic studies where you are very likely to be asked to make a presentation, while oral thesis defenses are what you will have to go through before your graduation. In your future professional life, you are likely to be asked to write and present business or work reports or promote products to clients. And it is not unlikely that a few of you will turn to politics in the future, in which case skills of public speaking would appear exceedingly important. Besides, in the globalization environment, with the cross-cultural intercommunication growing rapidly, there will be occasions where you will attend ceremonies of various kinds and make a speech.

Here comes the last purpose, which is to help you build confidence and advance your personal image. Through practicing and training, you may improve your way of communicating your ideas orally to a group of people, which will naturally help boost your confidence. And the ability to beautifully deliver a speech in public will undoubtedly upgrade your self-image and will make you more popular anywhere you go.

Ok, those are the five main purposes of opening this course. Some of you may wonder why I didn’t i nclude “to help students practice their spoken English”. Well, spoken English is another course, as having a conversation is different from making public speeches. As a matter of fact, a relatively better command of oral English is required of those who want to take this course. In a way, it’s more a speech course than a language course. Now let’s move on to how this course will be conducted and the teaching schedule.

First, this course will integrate theory into practice, with focus on practice. To be more exact, the first four classes will be devoted to theory. The theory will be based on the lecture notes which you’ll find in our class email box. (I’ll show it to you later.) The lecture notes are based on the book The Art of Public Speaking by Stephan Lucas. And we’ll illustrate the theory with examples, either verbal or visual. After the first few weeks of theory learning, volunteers will be assigned a speech, upon which I’ll make some comments in order to consolidate what you have just learned. The 2 sample speeches will take two classes.

Second, the remaining 10 classes will be used for classroom presentation. Each student is required to give two speeches, one is informative, the other persuasive. Four students will make speeches each week. Both teachers and students are to comment on their performances. Each speech is a 10-minute talk, followed by 10 minutes for Q & A and 2 minutes for grading.

As you can see, more time will be spent on practice rather than on theory. That is why we call it practice-oriented. To make our practice more effective, you are supposed to meet some requirements.

To make our class more effective and efficient, you are to fulfill the following 14 requirements.

1.Don’t skip classes and don’t be late. Or you’ll be punished. In the latter part of the speech you’ll know how.

2. Be attentive in class. In this class, you’ll play many roles other than a listener.

You are also a questioner, commentator and a judge as well.

3. Prepare and compose the speech well and well in advance. The platform is

to the speakers what the stage to the actors and actresses. A minute on the

stage means days of hard work off the stage.

4. Every speech should be written yourself. You are not allowed to copy the

whole thing from the internet. If you do quote something, you need to mention it in bibliography, which is supposed to be displayed at the end of a speech.

5. Practice and rehearse fully until you can make the speech with confidence.

Remember a lot of practice will always give a boost to your confidence.

6.Don’t bring the speech draft or the preparation outline to the stage. You can

make a speech with your speaking outline only.

7. Limit your speech to ten minutes. Or the assessment of your presentation

will be affected.

8. Don’t us e too many slides in your ppt. 12 will suffice for a 10-minute talk.

9.Don’t play any video clip that lasts longer than 1 minute.

10. Hand in the preparation outline a week before your speech. Be sure it is

the printed work instead of the handwritten one. Meanwhile, your speech draft and speaking outline are supposed to be submitted on line a week before the performance. A record will be kept about the time of submission.

And late submission is not allowed.

11. Try to look at the audience and make eye contact as often as possible. This

will contribute a lot to the scoring.

12. Print your evaluation charts and bring them to class from the fifth week on.

You are the judge, remember? You need something to keep the record of each speech.

13. Discuss others’ speeches with group mates and grade them carefully and

fairly. Your class will be broken down into groups of 4 and the group leader is responsible for the calculation of the average score of each speaker. 14.Don’t ask me to revise your score. In order to follow the principle of fair play,

don’t ask me to change your score for any reason.

There might be some other requirements along the way. I’ll let you know when they come up. Now let’s look at the last main point which you might be more concerned about --- grading.

The total score is composed of 3 parts: the first speech, 40% of the total score; the second, 45% (of each speech, your grading will account for 30%, while mine, 70%); class performance, 15%, including attendance and participation, with attendance accounting for 7 points, and participation 8 points. If you are absent from one class for no reason at all, one point will be deducted and if you are late for one class, half a point will be deducted. And you can’t come into the classroom until the end of one speech, that is, when you hear the applause. By participation we mean you have to be actively involved in Q&A and comment session. Your performance will be recorded based on the quality of your questions and comments.

In terms of grading the speech, you need to know how to evaluate the performance of your fellow students. Now let’s look at the evaluation chart.

Evaluation Chart

Class___________ Group ___________ Date ________________

Name of speaker____________ Name of evaluator ____________

You are required to grade the first 6 of the 7 items. Please note that each item has different percentage of the total score. Following are the descriptions of each item to be evaluated that you should pay attention to when grading. 1. Vocal Effect includes pronunciation, vocal variety, fluency, clarity, volume,

pacing (rhythm), among which vocal variety and pacing are the most important and so take a larger share of the grade.

2. Verbal Language includes grammar, accuracy, appropriateness, and

vividness.

3. Structure refers to the organization of a speech and effectiveness of each

part, namely opening, body and ending.

4. Body Language contains eye contact, gesture, facial expression, and

posture.

5. Visual Aid mainly includes ppt. or video clips. Each ppt. should have a

limited number of slides, preferably 12 slides for a 10-minute speech.

6. Overall Effect refers to the general impression a speech leaves on the

audience. When grading this part, you should consider whether the speech is informative enough --- containing new, interesting, helpful information, or whether a persuasive speech is convincing enough --- including whether the speaker speaks with passion; whether the speaker uses rhetorical devices in the speech; whether you, as audience, are moved, inspired or persuaded and so on. This part also includes Q&A, where attention should be paid to whether the speaker understands the questions and repeats it to the audience and whether he/she answers the question satisfactorily and in

a good manner.

7. Outline is left for the teacher, that is, I will grade item 7 after you hand in

your preparation outline.

Well, with the grading done, the introduction to this course is about to wind up. But before that, let’s go over the whole thing briefly so that you won’t forget them immediately and then you can make an informed decision as to whether you will buy this course, since it’s still the shopping week.

To sum up, my opening speech today consists of four main points. First, there are 5 purposes of opening this course. Second, this course incorporates theory with practice, with focus on practice. Third, to ensure the effectiveness of this course, you are supposed to meet 14 requirements. Last, how the final score is composed.

The ultimate goal of this course is to enable you to make satisfactory public speeches with sufficient preparation and practice. Bear this in mind, without a good preparation or enough practice, you will go nowhere. It would be like building a house without a blueprint or labor.

Many of the students who chose this course before claimed to have benefitted a lot and some of them told me it helped them greatly in their actual performance when they were required to make a presentation, though in Chinese, not in English, for the skills involved are basically the same. Anyway, let’s keep our fingers crossed that one day you will grow into eloquent speakers in whatever field you are.

Thank you for your patience. Now I’m ready to take questions from you if any.