3 minute read
ParentWise
from The Voice 37
The Art of Public Speaking
Why is it important for your child to learn the art of public speaking? Elizabeth Anstiss, Senior Art Specialist, tells us why.
Speech Coach Anthony Gordon Lennox wanted to teach the world to talk. After he passed away, The Times said, “he didn’t put marbles in people’s mouths or give them elocution lessons but helped everyone from princesses to prime ministers, CEOs and trainee hairdressers to speak articulately and authentically.” Public speaking, or how Lennox described it, ‘clear expression’ is the ‘key to social mobility’. We all know that a string of A-grades is not all that is required by universities to open their doors to students. We also know that employers seek good communication skills before much else. In fact, if you cannot articulate yourself at an interview, the job is most probably not yours.
THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATING WELL
Education policy has grown dramatically in the last five years. Theorists like Martin Scicluna have acknowledged that ‘it was once almost entirely about being literate and numerate rather than being able to orate’. A noisy classroom most probably would have been interpreted as a disruptive one in the past. Now the buzz of debate is encouraged and favoured. We want our children to find their voices and use them efficaciously.
Subsequently, there is now a need more than ever to teach our children to communicate well. Children and adolescents seem to communicate with their peers more electronically than face to face. They converse with their friends through WhatsApp, Messenger, Snapchat, and a variety of different digital platforms. There is even an over reliance to use photos to communicate their voices through platforms like Instagram. Although all have their place, sometimes the space to use their voice to master expression, intonation and persuasive conversations is often lost in favour of acronyms and emojis.
EQUIPPING OUR CHILDREN FOR THE FUTURE
An infant’s first experience of written narrative is listening to books being read aloud. It’s this act that inspires interest. When poems are written, the sound of the words are paramount and will only be experienced if recited well. Discussions are more enticing if ideas are presented sophisticatedly and persuasively. We need to carve out more space for our children to practise these skills whether it’s over the dinner table, in the car on the way to school or during their lunch break. This is reinforced with ample opportunities in the Infant, Junior and Senior schools. Public speaking needs to be practised and taught.
We all want to equip our children with the tools for a successful future. Social and professional success increasingly depends upon oral communication. Remote learning, for one, has highlighted the increasing need to articulate clearly, coherently, and persuasively. A student’s oral skills are put on full display during online lessons on platforms like Zoom, Teams, Skype, and Facetime. This is how many lessons are conducted nowadays and as digital trends in many industries have shown us, it’s not likely to change soon.
George Anders (Senior Editor-at-Large at LinkedIn, a New York Times bestselling author, and a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter) made a similar observation during HMH’s Shaping the Future podcast. He said that oral communication now dominates the business world and believes that there is no shortage of people with brilliant ideas, but there is a shortage of people who can articulate those ideas verbally. He states turning ideas into reality requires talking to others.
At Tanglin, Sixth Form students are given an opportunity to practise their public speaking skills at events such as ARTiculation Asia 2022. They prepared speeches on topics that ranged from film, fine art, and even mathematical graphs but the emphasis was on the delivery of their knowledge, effective communication, and captivating stage presence. They pitted their skills against students from Garden School (Kuala Lumpur) during the online finals in March and we are proud to say that our students were articulate communicators who delivered their speeches without an acronym or emoji in sight! ■
