Public Speaking

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I'm teaching 12th grade English to a group of adults, and I have them doing a reading of a poem (of their choice) in front of the class. They then have to analyze and discuss the poem with the class.

You'd think I asked them to move Everest. I've never seen a group of adults whine so much in my life. Many of them appear to be afraid of speaking in public. WTF is wrong with them?

Or maybe, WTF is wrong with me? Weigh in and tell me, SP, what's your feeling on public speaking? Is it really that bad? I've heard the old story about people fearing it more than death, but I never really bought that. Enlighten me.

Oh, and somebody tell me where the **** the survey button is - -I wanted to set this up as a survery but I'm too dim to find the button!

 

Most are anxious about it, but with some preparation, can handle it just fine. When I was in High School (yeah, I can actually remember back that far) there were occasional oral reports and the like. There was plenty of more of that in college. I'd expect that most adults would be okay with such a task with appropriate time to prepare for it.

Will they be speaking in their native language for the report? If so, I'm surprised that you're getting so much push back.

 

I hear you LKD, getting people to speak in front of others is a thankless chore. Otherwise excellent students flat out refuse. I thought it was a Swedish thing though, public speaking is the number one fear here well ahead of crime, bugs or heights.

All I try to do is to create a relaxed, friendly and intimate atmosphere making the students feel comfortable and at the end of the course most people will actually get up. From the beginning of the course I constantly nag people to say small things in the class, answer a question, read a sentence to slowly lure them along until they can actually stand in front of the class speaking (hopefully).

 

LKD,
I experienced pretty much the same thing when I taught basic English to a group of adults. My attempt at a solution was to have everybody do it, and to have the first person to laugh read next, say that immediately and follow through with that announcement. With the example made, they winced but did it in the end. But I had to be a bit of a martinet to pull that off. After that initiation, the atmosphere was more relaxed and they were more willing to speak.

It was worse with Turkish students.

IMO this is about people being afraid to lose face, or face ridicule. Turkish people, probably culturally, are more afraid of that than we Westerners. I found that with the Turks appealing to pride helps.

 

Swedes are perhaps as western as it comes and not overly concerned with pride and such and yet public speaking is for most a thing of horror.

I have noticed that doing something ridicolous, silly or stupid early on in the course where everyone gets to laugh at everyone seems to ease tensions quite a lot as well as knitting the group together. The kind of students I tend to have generally do not respond well to being coerced, nor do I want to traumatize people unduly but I do find myself having serious talks with at least one pupil every semester stressing that he/she has to start speaking one way or another or I will fail them.

Surprised that LKD is experiencing this issue as he does, I was under the impression that the US (and thus in extension Canada) start working with public speaking at a very early age and that it isn't much of an issue over there.

 

Depends on the context really, I've given a number of speeches and spoken in public numerous times yet in some situations it can really be a pain. Especially when you are not 100% certain of the material you're talking about or when there's a crowd with mission to analyse to death every syllable you speak. In most cases I'm fine with it and even enjoy it in cases where I know I enjoy the advantage of knowledge towards the listeners. I hated it in German though when I could not speak the language fluently enough to express what I wanted to say. I have no problem with English, Finnish or Swedish though.

 

I have to speak publically for work (in fact I may be doing a stint for a university soon) and I've never had a problem. The key is to talk about something you're passionate about. If you don't really care about the subject then I can see why one would have a problem. Is the message you are trying to convey more important than worrying about the people in front of you?
In the case of these students, they aren't going to care about a poem. Maybe it would have been better to ask the twhat they love and then ask them to do a short talk about it?

Also, with the language thing, when I was learning to sign I hated signing in front of deaf people in case I made a dumb mistake and they thought I was stupid. Now that I am more competant I can say that I may get it wrong and could they please correct me.

 

To clarify, this class is not officially an ESL class. Many of the students are WASPs born and raised in Canada and speak only English. Another sizeable chunk are foreigners for whom English is a second language, but the course is a pre-requisite for many university and college programs, and a high level of competance and skill in the English language is required.

What got me was the biggest whiner in the group was a born and bred white Canadian, a woman in her mid 20s with two kids. When I teach angsty teens I understand and expect some nervousness from them, but this is an adult woman, supposedly responsible for raising and supporting a family. What the hell? I wanted to shake her and say "you're an adult now, sweet cheeks, bite the bullet and suck it up, buttercup! You're too old for this crap!"

But I didn't. I was compassionate and caring and all of that crap.

 

I know a lot of people who have a fear of speaking publicly, and are poor public speakers. While I don't understand why (as I have no fear of doing it myself), it really spooks a lot of people. You don't really get more comfortable speaking in front of people other than by doing it, so it's sort of like a self-reinforcing principle, in that by not being too good at it, you avoid doing it, and so you never develop the ability to be better at it. I taught at the university, and I taught some training courses with the Army, so for me it's not big deal, and I don't know why people wig-out about it, especially in a more casual classroom setting.

 

I am an excellent public speaker. Although, I get nervous as hell waiting to speak, then once I start rolling everything goes smoothly. Those minutes until I utter my first words are some of the toughest. I've never understood why I am that way as I know I will do very well, but for some reason I just can't get past that initial rush of fear.

 

I don't mind presentations, myself, one of the few things I'm okay with despite more often than not making a prat of myself (Note To Self - bring a drink and turn your alarms off on the phone )

Most people feel like they're going to look like a tart in front of everyone and make themselves look foolish in front of their peers.

Worst thing that happens to me is waiting my turn! I get anxious mine isn't going to live up to expectations, I've managed to garner a bit of a reputation in my class for being a presentation daemon.

 

I have a feeling that this is similar to people's obsession over their appearance. We all hang over the mirror every morning, worrying about whether out hair is falling in just the right way while actually no one gives a damn what our hair looks like and they don't particularly notice the subtle, nuanced differences we obsess over from one day to the next. Likewise, I suspect that most people don't much give a damn about whatever you're speaking publically about, and even if they do, they don't notice or care if you do any of the things that you are obsessively certain they are obsessively watching for while perched on the edges of their seats.

 

I don't mind speaking in public, but I have a fear of poetry. Don't make me read poetry or I may have to go medieval on your ass.

 

I'm allowing them to use a modern song as poetry, so it won't be quite so bad.

 

That's pretty bad as far as I'm concerned LKD. It's always frustrating to work with someone who allows themself to be defeated before they've even begun.

It's especially good that you avoid the "sweet cheeks" comment, as that could have resulted in a harassment charge!

 

I swear to God, if I said even a tenth of the stuff that sometimes crosses my mind, I would be unemployed, divorced (again!), maimed, and given the politically correct BS that pervades my beloved country, probably imprisoned.

 

Not to mention banned from the BoM!

Anyway, tell your students that the best way to overcome the fear of public speaking is to pretend the audience is naked. And then to help them out with that, you should take off all your clothes.