Ens203/Spring 2012
Iceland’s champion debater, Sigríður María Egilsdóttir, has called for better education for women and has said it is within women’s power to eradicate gender inequality for an “equal and just society”.
Public speaking activity – teacher‘s notes
Time: 8-10 lessons
Prep: scan/ read parts of the ESU Mentor Handbook
Warm-up:
Try games suggested in Section 3 in the ESU Mentor Handbook, variations on Socratic dialogue or anything else you like.
Project:
Students work in pairs.
Phase one (start in class, finish as homework). Students find examples of great speeches. Encourage them to ask their parents etc. for ideas. Each pair then teams up with two others to share what they found. A foreseeable problem here is their restricted access to YouTube, but probably it would be best that they should bring notes and explain what they found orally, links to all speeches found on YouTube could then be shared, for example on Moodle. Also it will be interesting to see how many come up with the same speeches ( I have a dream etc.). (1 lesson – homework – 1 lesson).
Phase two is the writing of the speech. Here students will use cues from phase one to write their own speech. They should base their speech on a ‘motion’ like the ones in Section 7 in the ESU Mentor Handbook. Ideally they should come up with their own motion, but if they can not the teacher will suggest one. They should write a manuscript for their speech and hand it in so part of the grade will be the writing. (2-4 lessons).
Phase three is the delivering of the speech. When the speech is ready the students perform it. Each pair can opt to deliver the speech jointly or individually, but they get the same grade. A simple scoring system will be developed (based on the ESU system) and introduced beforehand. Reading the speech will be allowed but will result in a lower grade. A rehearsal round where 2-3 pairs share their speeches and make comments and criticism is advisable. The speeches should be 3-5 minutes long so a class of 28 should only 3-4 lessons for the performance. It’s a good idea to encourage them to show up in nice clothes to give the whole thing an air of formality and to have more fun with it. It is possible to add an element of competition with a small prize or something.
All students who do well in this activity should be pressured into participating in the school and national competitions!