Overview

American Center Public Speaking Club has created a safe space for students and young professionals to practice public speaking skills and express their views on various important topics.

Out of the total 26 sessions, the first seven sessions focused on equipping participants with essential public speaking skills, including:

1. Identifying the Purpose of a Speech

2. Choosing a Suitable Topic and Message

3. Organizing a Speech

4. Opening and Concluding a Speech

5. Utilizing Vocal Variety in a Speech

6. Using Body Language and Facial Expression in a Speech

7. Support a Speech with Visual Aids

The other 19 sessions comprised guided activities for participants to bring such skills into practice. A session was designed based on learning science principles, namely experiential learning, andragogy, and information processing theory. Applying these principles ensured that the participants could:

• Have a safe, supportive to raise their ideas and demonstrate the skills learned

• Immediately apply the skills shared. The amount of information is easily digestible within a 90-minute session. This means the skills they’ve learned can stick for a longer time compared to the “info-dumping” learning method that dominates many classrooms.

• View mistakes as a fundamental part of learning, not as a failure. This helps boost their proactiveness and willingness to take on a speaking challenge.

Result

Participants have acquired from the sessions both fundamental public speaking skills and enhanced interests in social issues. Here are some of the participant feedback:

"This is the first time I’ve learned that there are different types of hand gestures we can use while doing public speaking. I’ve always found my hands flailing around but now I can use them with more intention in my speech.” "

-Participant

"I’ve found the redundancy principle helpful in creating visual aids that support a speech content instead of distracting the audience from it. "

-Participant

"I didn’t know the existence of the letter Q in the LGBTQ+ community. But now I’m inspired to learn more about different sexual identities. "

-Participant

Observations and Lessons Learnt

• There were 20 to 100 participants in each session, and their speaking time was approximately 50-70% of the total length.  

• Each participant had their unique strengths in public speaking. For example, younger participants generally devised creative ways to express their ideas through storytelling and visual aids. More senior participants, in contrast, utilized their expertise and life experience to add depth to a speech.

• It’s important to embrace different styles of public speakers, and participants were encouraged to practice based on their personal goals.