0
A day with the Toastmasters..
Posted by Super Samuel
on
2/14/2010 10:52:00 PM
in
Samuel Goh Min Tzung
About two weeks ago, my church invited the nearby toastmasters to hold a crash course on improving public speaking. The workshop took up two days and covered the basics of speech giving and public speaking.
The first day began with each of us being paired up with a partner. It was recommended that we paired up with someone we didn't know that well. We were then supposed to introduce our partner to the rest of the people. Including their names, age, hobby, and their deepest darkest secret.
Although many people said that they were bad at public speaking, the toastmasters told us later that we were speaking, and we spoke to an audience. Many of us realised then that it wasn't that hard after all.
And so the session went on and the toastmasters thought us many tips on how to prepare our speeches. From knowing the topic we are speaking and the type of audience we are speaking to, to the format of our speeches such as the Cause-Effect pattern and the Problem-Solution pattern. We were even shown video clips of toastmaster’s speeches at competition level and given examples of how our nonverbal communication should be like, such as expressions, tone, and gestures.
In addition to those we were also given a practise where we had to speak on a random topic on stage while avoiding pause fillers such as "erm", repeated words, dragging of words etc. The course ended with each of us splitting into groups of five and we had to come up with a product to sell to the audience. We had to deliver a persuasive speech as a group as a final practise.
Strange as it may seem, I did badly on stage. I completely had no confidence in the 'product' which was a jeans converted into a diary cover. But I really appreciated the comments and suggestions that the toastmasters gave me. They told me I needed to be more confident and not lose control of the stage and to just relax. To my greatest surprise, Mr Murali gave us the exact same topic to do as our presentation, except this time i had the toastmasters' experience on my side.
The first day began with each of us being paired up with a partner. It was recommended that we paired up with someone we didn't know that well. We were then supposed to introduce our partner to the rest of the people. Including their names, age, hobby, and their deepest darkest secret.
Although many people said that they were bad at public speaking, the toastmasters told us later that we were speaking, and we spoke to an audience. Many of us realised then that it wasn't that hard after all.
And so the session went on and the toastmasters thought us many tips on how to prepare our speeches. From knowing the topic we are speaking and the type of audience we are speaking to, to the format of our speeches such as the Cause-Effect pattern and the Problem-Solution pattern. We were even shown video clips of toastmaster’s speeches at competition level and given examples of how our nonverbal communication should be like, such as expressions, tone, and gestures.
In addition to those we were also given a practise where we had to speak on a random topic on stage while avoiding pause fillers such as "erm", repeated words, dragging of words etc. The course ended with each of us splitting into groups of five and we had to come up with a product to sell to the audience. We had to deliver a persuasive speech as a group as a final practise.
Strange as it may seem, I did badly on stage. I completely had no confidence in the 'product' which was a jeans converted into a diary cover. But I really appreciated the comments and suggestions that the toastmasters gave me. They told me I needed to be more confident and not lose control of the stage and to just relax. To my greatest surprise, Mr Murali gave us the exact same topic to do as our presentation, except this time i had the toastmasters' experience on my side.
Post a Comment