Public Speaking Activities

We’ve all been there and done that. Yet, for most of us, public speaking remains a nerve-racking activity. Despite hours of practice, the sight of a stage, sends shivers down the spine and we find ourselves in a conundrum of thoughts. The main reason for goofed up public speaking episodes, is because we get overwhelmed by the audience and their capacity to judge us. Public speaking activities, cannot be ignored, as it is a very important skill. If the fear of public speaking is not dealt with early, in childhood, it may persist to cause problems of socializing and of being accepted in social circles, later in life. Here are a few public speaking activities, week by week, for you, to build confidence in your child.

Public Speaking Activities

Introduction
One of the simplest public speaking activities for students begins with introducing themselves. As freshers in the school environment, children are apprehensive about going to school. On the first day of school, conduct a small introduction session. Ask the children to walk up to the front of the class, introduce themselves by saying their names, describe the clothes they are wearing, thank everyone for listening, and then return to their place. You could begin this activity, by introducing yourself as their teacher. Instruct the children to emulate you, and coax them if they fumble. Cheer every kid with nice comments, as it boosts their moral and assures them of their act. Read more on public speaking for kids.

Interviewing
Once, the children are familiar with each other after the introduction, conducting interviews can be done in the following week. Activities for public speaking will help your child be insightful about people and objects around him/her, with the interviewing technique. In this public speaking technique, divide the children into pairs. Every child has to ask the partner questions to find out 3 striking points. Once they are done with the interview, ask every pair to come up onstage, one by one, and talk about the striking points for 2-3 minutes. These points can be fictional or funny, as long as they reveal something about the partner.

Personal Details
By now, your students or children must be quite friendly, considering that they’ve worked as partners. This makes this exercise the obvious next move. Talking about personal details is one of the best public speaking exercises for conducting public speaking activities for adults. For this exercise, the adult or the student has to make a small write up about personal details, memorize and then speak about them in front of the class. This way, one learns to open up to the audience, fearlessly. Students can narrate a funny, embarrassing, tragic, moving, exciting or an interesting incident about themselves.

One Act Play
A little drama is always good fun to learn expression and build up confidence. In the fourth and the final week, give your students exactly five minutes, to do this exercise. Every child has to demonstrate a skill or a latent talent in front of the class. The child can do this public speaking activity with a prop, or without a prop. Say, the child gets a toy from home, and talks about it for five minutes. If a child is good at singing, then the child sings with a few histrionics. These gesticulations and histrionics are way of teaching the child to do multiple things at a time, without losing the focus.

Read more on

• Overcoming Fear of Public Speaking
• Nervousness and Public Speaking

Public speaking activities are not just about talking, it’s more about constructing a logical sequence to every statement and putting them across in a way that your audience understands it. It is more about organizing your speech and delivering it with confidence and conviction. I hope, these public speaking activities help you to help your child!

By Mukta Gaikwad