Writing in Public Speaking Class, Essay Example

Public speaking has been emerging as one of the most valuable soft skills in the real world and employers in almost every industry prefer candidates with strong public speaking skills. Public speaking skills allow individuals to be more effective ambassador of their respective companies. In addition, public speaking skills are also valuable in negotiations with other companies as well as positively influencing organizations’ existing and potential clients. In the age of globalization, more and more companies are setting international operations and public speaking skills can be quite helpful in developing business relationships in international markets. Almost every university now offers a course in public speaking and while it is a positive trend, the format of the public speaking courses is not always very effective and usually follows the traditional format of most other courses. The goal is always more important than the means and the goal of any public speaking course is to help students develop effective public speaking skills. Public speaking courses at Portland State University (PSU) can be made more effective by eliminating all written assignments and by taking more practical approach to learning.

First of all, all students who take public speaking course at PSU should be provided lecture slides so that they do not have to take notes and they can attentively listen to the lecture in the course. By eliminating the need to take notes, the public speaking instructors at PSU will ensure that students have the time to not only listen to the lectures but also understand it. It is also a good idea to eliminate any textbooks because textbooks do not always incorporate the latest best practices in the public speaking area. By eliminating textbooks, the instructors at PSU will also have the flexibility to modify course curriculum as they see fit over time.

PSU should also provide video cameras for public speaking courses. The video cameras will be used to record speeches made by the students. The videos would be posted on the course websites where the students could access them anytime and be able to identify their personal strengths and weaknesses. Students will learn a lot about their public speaking skills by watching videos because they will have the opportunity to analyze their own performance by putting themselves in place of the audience members. Similarly, instead of taking notes of the feedback provided by the course instructor as well as the class mates, the students could always access the feedback through the video recordings post on the website.

Students should not be given any written assignment in public speaking courses at PSU but instead asked to practice on their own before the mirror and discuss their observations in the course. The class discussions would allow the students to identify most common public speaking problems facing the class and the instructors could focus upon eliminating those problems. In addition, instead of requiring written assignments, the students could be given ‘surprise’ tasks by the public speaking instructors at PSU such as unannounced speech on a topic of their choice. While experts can give you suggestions as to how to become an effective public speaker, the real progress occurs only through practice. This is why incorporating more speech assignments including ‘surprise’ speeches may do more to help students become comfortable as speakers. The instructor could also introduce new members in the audience such as PSU faculty members because public speaking before strangers is often more challenging than before those whom you already know to some extent.

Public speaking courses at PSU could also be made more effective by showing videos of famous speeches and asking the students to critically analyze the speech according to the lectures delivered in the course. Part of becoming an effective public speaker is also becoming an attentive observer because public speaking is not only about verbal communication but also carefully observing the audience and the read the environment. A public speaker can read non-verbal cues and knows how to put audience members at each. An effective critical analysis by students of the famous speeches will also allow the public speaking instructors at PSU to gauge the learning of the students.

There are shortcomings to even the best-laid plans and while these suggestions may help students learn better and more effectively, they may also weaken the instructors’ ability to ensure that students are giving due time to the course material outside the class. Some students may lie that they do practice at home even when they don’t and some won’t pay attention in the class because there will be no pressure to prepare notes.

While the suggestions in this paper will lessen the workload for students taking a public speaking course at PSU and may even cause some students to take relaxed approach to learning, these suggestions will also ensure that instructors are able to design their courses as they fit and can incorporate latest best practices into the curriculum. Students’ learning will also be improved because the course design and mode of learning will imitate the conditions of the real world as much as possible.