Public speaking is crucial for improving communication skills and confidence levels in students. Public schools are called upon to improve students’ debating skills and build their confidence.
Jonathan Noakes, the director of teaching and learning at Eton, stated that state schools should establish debating clubs to improve students’ speaking skills. Some state-educated public speakers have expressed their views on how they master communication.
Learn how to take up the space
Saima Mir, an author, stated that she is really strange to public speaking and actually prefers general chit-chat. She had to do so much publicity around her books before she mastered them. She added that she is an introvert, but she feels like an introvert whenever she is on stage.
She stated: “I’ve thought a lot about why this is. I’m nearly 50 and I think I care less now. I also believe that what I have to say is important, as pompous as that sounds. That said, I wasn’t always good at it when I started out. I used to get very nervous. I went to state school and we didn’t learn how to debate or present ourselves publicly at all. At the mosque we had to give short speeches from the age of six but I wasn’t very good at it.”
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Mir learned a lot about public speaking through storytelling. Working for the BBC for many years, she had to do pieces for the camera, which was the training she did.
She categorizes her speech into three parts: the beginning, middle, and end, to ensure her audience understands every detail.
She said: “One of the things I’ve had to learn is how to take up space. To know that I am allowed to be on that stage and what I have to say is of interest. That is the key skill that young people need to be given.”
Some teachers also have a passion for public speaking.
The MP for Bristol Central and the co-leader of the Green party, Carla Denyer, recall that a new teacher, Mr Horgan, joined their school, and he came with another teacher, Ms Lonsdale. The two teachers recently graduated from Oxford and set up an extracurricular programme for promising students, including a debating club and public speaking.
Denver stated, “It was key in building my confidence. We entered competitions and were almost always the only state school taking part.”
“My advice to young people is that if you don’t have these opportunities at your school, the chances are there will be a teacher who has a passion for it, but thinks there isn’t the demand, or hasn’t quite got around to it. See if you can find someone to help you set it up.”
Authenticity is a crucial thing.
According to Alexander Crossman, headteacher of the London Academy of Excellence sixth form, Stratford, London, she is pretty sure that she didn’t do any public speaking or debating in the West Midlands. She said, “I think I learned how to do it from lecturers at university: how to engage an audience and convey complex or subtle ideas through forces of rhetoric and personality.”
“Authenticity is the most important thing. I’m very fortunate that I’m almost always asked to speak about things I genuinely care about. You can spend a lot of time worrying about where you’re standing or the intonation of your voice, but, if you want to really connect with an audience, nothing is as important as meaning what you say.”
Crossman said they had many opportunities for public speaking at the LAE, including debating clubs and students’ societies, and they had the chance to participate in Model United Nations. The assemblies are almost exclusively student-delivered.
Crossman stated that: “There is an element of overcoming impostor syndrome. Very often young people, particularly those from lower-income backgrounds, are reluctant to speak up because they think everybody else knows more than they do or are more articulate than they are. Actually, pretty much everybody has some level of insecurity about those things, and that is normal.”
Relax and go for it
According to James Oliveira-Agnew, a barrister at Lamb Building chambers, many lawyers have a natural affinity with performing. She added that some of them failed as actors or singers, but they had to find something else to do.
Oliveira-Agnew said: “I enjoy this aspect of it. We had a very good drama department at our state school in Hamble near Southampton, which helped me with speaking in public, projecting my voice and learning lines. But debating, putting your point across, listening to arguments and thinking on your feet wasn’t something that I learned at school.”
“If you’re looking to go into law as a career, especially at the bar, then not having been given those opportunities may well make you think it’s not for you.”
She added, “My advice is to take a deep breath and go for it. If it all goes wrong, no one’s going to remember, and you can learn from it and move on.”
