This activity aims to assist students with persuasive tactics for argumentative speeches. The activity involves students creating an argumentative speech to defend a hot-take assertion chosen from a list provided by the instructor. In small groups, students will craft an argument supporting their hot-take assertion and present it to the class.…

Social work programs are grappling with changing students' attitudes about working with older adults. Our study aimed to understand whether adding a guest speaker working in the field into weekly content would influence students' attitudes about working with older adults. We conducted an exploratory study using a cross-sectional design with a pre…

This essay overviews a semester-long course activity and framework for the basic public-speaking course. Using Paul and Elder's critical-thinking framework, the author discusses ways to address some of the common problems within the public-speaking course while enhancing critical thinking. Through this model, students develop skills in five…

Courses: Public Speaking, Advanced Public Speaking, Capstone Courses. Objective: This activity is designed to help students identify different components of an elevator speech and assemble elevator speeches highlighting their strengths. The activity ultimately increases students' sense of self-competence.

The purpose of this essay is more of an intellectual exercise than an attempt at a pragmatic redesign of the basic course. Essentially, I submit that we as a discipline have lost sight of what the phrase "public speaking" actually means and erroneously and dangerously equated it with simply delivering formal presentations. When the term…

This activity extends the rich pedagogical scholarship on impromptu speaking by integrating visual imagery into the impromptu speaking exercise. The goal of this semester-long series of exercises is to provide students with the opportunity to apply effective delivery skills across general purposes of speaking, receive feedback, and thus develop…

Impromptu speaking is a typical exercise in communication-focused courses. This format is often used to practice reducing or assess speaking anxiety, getting to know one another, and delivering project updates and ceremonial remarks. For students to practice their skills in quick thinking and speech preparation, instructors commonly have students…

Courses: Introduction to public speaking, advanced public speaking, hybrid/survey introduction to communication. Objectives: At the end of this activity, students will be able to (1) explain the elements of a speaking outline and discover these elements in real-world speech examples, (2) recreate outline formats effectively in their personal…

Students wishing to be entrepreneurs have a great need for role models to serve as inspiration and help them envision their future organization. Universities often use guest speakers for this purpose. The author introduces a methodology of using a library of audio tapes as a virtual guest speaker series, larger and more diversified than even the…

This research investigates the enhancement of English public speaking skills among Thai EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students through imitating TED Talks videos. By applying Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and Krashen's Input Hypothesis, the study integrates authentic materials for effective learning. A mixed methods approach,…

The current study explores the relationship between social contagion and vocal fillers. An experiment was conducted in which 100 students presented speeches. Prior to presenting their speech, half of the students were exposed to a speech with excessive vocal fillers and half were exposed to a speech with no vocal fillers. Students who heard a…

Oral presentations and public speaking are an important aspect of the student experience in the United Kingdom higher education. Many modules (self-contained units normally within a programme of study) use presentations as a form of assessment and require students to verbally engage in small and large group settings to enhance learning. Previous…

Anchored on Foucauldian Discourse Analysis, this study traced and analyzed evidence of "dominance construction" in spoken corpus, wherein the subject corpora are political speeches of Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (PRRD). Discourse segments from the speeches were extracted using content analysis meant to isolate those…

July 15, 2019 marked the fortieth anniversary of President Jimmy Carter's "Crisis of Confidence" speech, a catalyst for what became an often overlooked yet significant turning point in the nation's history. Carter's words were both poignant and pointed as he calmly, yet directly, addressed the nation's dependence on fossil fuels and…

Courses: Public speaking. Objective: This activity introduces and activates Monroe's Motivated Sequence.