Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic How have speaking skills helped you?

Help! I have to speak at a graduation type thingey on how speaking skills will help high school students in their life, particularly in their present life. How have speaking skills helped y'all?

well, being able to talk helps a lot. i can say "i'll have a diet coke, please," and, if i say it to the right person, i'll get something i wanted.

but that's probably not exactly the kind of speaking skills you meant.

in truth, though, the principle is the same. being able to communicate effectively and present yourself well is the key to a lot of important situations.

interviews are the most obvious case. there, speaking skills can help you get into a good school or get a job or just get something you need.

now, you're probably still sitting there thinking that i'm talking about the wrong kind of speaking skills. you're asking about the ability to stand up in front of a group of people and deliver a speech.

the thing is, it's all connected. being able to stand up in a group and give a speech can help give you the confidence you need to be more effective in other situations with a smaller audience (and vica versa). whether you're talking to one person or a thousand, you need to be able to be articulate and you need to have enough self-confidence to be comfortable with your audience.

once you develop that confidence, you find yourself doing better in a wide variety of situations -- speaking up in class, walking up and making new friends, being willing to ask someone out, moving away from the wall at parties, going for an interview, giving a presentation (whether for a job, a class, a club, or anything else), and just about any other situation that requires the courage to go up and talk to someone.

it's not the only thing you need, by a long shot, but it does make things a lot easier.

that's my take on it, anyway. i didn't mean to make it sound so much like a speech. i just thought about how much things changed for me when, thanks to a certain small physics class, i really learned to get past my shyness and speak up. carried through to a lot of places i hadn't really expected, and even made things better for me in other classes. i was often one of the few people willing to ask questions in a 200 person class, and (most of) my teachers liked me for it.

i've been home sick for 2 years now, and my psych professor, who teaches every term in one of the biggest lecture halls on campus and often goes out to lecture elsewhere, still remembers me because i was willing to speak up in class and even come up to talk to him after class sometimes.

hope this helps you, nqoire.

Paul

p.s. for the record, i tend to be a lot more shy in person than i am when typing into a text box.

I'm going to hop in and try not to get too heavy- don't everybody run. But I think Paul has hit on something really essential- it isn't just your skill in speaking that's important, but that you aren't afraid to speak.

I say that as someone who was pretty much a mouse for a lot of years. I had so much to say, but never had the nerve to just say it.

People will make decisions about you based on how you speak- if you sound inarticulate, they might assume you aren't bright. But that same sense of being judged can prevent you from speaking entirely.

When I was in grad school I read this amazing book with this great idea (note: this was amazing and life changing, only I can't remember author/title!) called "coming to voice."

Growing into your own voice and having the confidence to use it. For me that started in my 20s, I just opened my mouth and there are some in my circle that say I never closed it again. At the ripe age of 35, I can say it gets easier and easier.

My advice on speaking skills- use them! Don't be afraid to put yourself out there. The feedback can be excellent.

CC- did I just preach a sermon? former ministry student shows her colors, hazard of the profession and all that.....

Nqoire, it's all about what we in the UK education system have started to call 'key transferable skills'. In other words, in the education system you learn all about maths and English literature and geography and biology and so on - these are specific skills, but you also learn generic 'transferable skills'. These skills include the following:

• communication skills
• teamworking
• analytical skills
• discussion and argumentation skills
• logical reasoning skills

...and so on.

Speaking in public - whether to small or large groups is part of communication skills: you learn to communicate in writing and orally. And, in terms of oral communication, you learn to communicate ideas and thoughts one-to-one, but also to a large group of people.

As Paul says, it's partly about persuasion and influencing people. It's also about demonstrating that you can hold your own and communicate smoothly and clearly in front of large groups of people, or even with just one or two other people - that you don't get giggly or embarrassed, that you don't need to look down at your notes all the time and read them aloud, that you can speak with proper inflection and carry an audience with you - and convince them.

There are lots of occasions in adult life when you may need to speak in public - and not just social occasions. Public speaking, whether from a platform or just addressing a meeting, is an essential skill in employment. If you're not able to communicate ideas clearly and articulately, there are many jobs in which you'd be less successful than you could be. Writing the ideas down, or putting them on PowerPoint, is only part of the task; the more important bit is talking through them in front of people.

I'm an academic, and so of course oral communication skills are a necessity of my job - but not only when I'm teaching. I attend meetings all the time, and often have to speak and persuade people of my point of view. My husband works in information technology, and he has to make presentations, formal and informal, to customers. People in sales make presentations all the time. If you work in tourism or hospitality, you may have to speak to large groups of tourists/guests, and often persuade them of your point of view and/or have to make what you say interesting enough for them to listen to you.

So, all in all, speaking skills are essential, both socially, as Paul has shown, and in employment. And just remind them that in order to get a job in the first place they're probably going to have to be interviewed - now there's a compelling use for speaking skills!

Hope this helps,


Wendy (who is used to saying things like this on a regular basis to classes of students who don't understand why they're being made to give presentations in tutorials )

Drawing on a point CC brought up, I am quite inarticulate. I have a very small vocabulary and I often have trouble saying exactly what I want to say. Therefore, many people, upon meeting me, assume right away that I am stupid. Among friends, it is really funny, but among collegues, it is often embarassing.

I am fairly good at public speaking -- even though I am a bit of a motor-mouth -- if anyone has seen the "Micromachines" commercials from the '80's with the world's fastest talker, I can talk faster than he can. And I used to go into "presentation mode" where my voice would get really high pitched and I talk so fast no one could understand what I am saying! Well, I am even like that if I get excited in regular conversation, too.

My problem is that when people ask me questions durring/after the presentation, even though I normally know the answer, if I am unprepared for the question, I have a hard time answering it intelligently. This is not a good thing and something that I am really working hard at to improve. A problem in this area is really that people listening to me don't take me seriously as someone who knows what she is doing. So having good presentation skills is very important so you don't look like an idiot when you are presenting in front of a group of your peers / your committee of professors that are responsible for giving you a MS or PhD .

Basically, I agree with everything everyone else has said.

- Laura

Thanks for all the info! The speech went fine...