PS - Public Speaking
Public Speaking for ALL Classes.
Are you ready to deliver this aspect of the Primary Language Curriculum?
Our public speaking skills course delivers all the ideas, insights, skills, practices and lesson outlines that you require to make public speaking a new & exciting approach to your curriculum, be that in infants or sixth class.
It is probably one of the most exciting developments of recent years – to teach a programme of public speaking skills to ALL children from infants to sixth class.
“I can think of no other gift I would rather give a student than the confidence to stand and speak on whatever it is he or she wishes to be heard.” – Siobhán Keenan Fitzgerald
The pedagogy, principles and practices acquired through this course, combined with the ‘LET’s Stand’ Programme, will enable every class teacher build an everlasting foundation in public speaking skills that every child can rely on for life.
Let it be the mission of every school and your mission, to provide every child with the skills, competence and confidence to be able to speak & communicate effectively to an audience – be that two or ten, a room of people or a packed auditorium.
That mission is now embodied in a public speaking skills approach in every school from September.
Get on board, get with the programme mission and be ready for off this September!
Note: This course is part of a DE pilot programme for summer courses that include synchronous sessions. It is compulsory to attend all 4 hours of synchronous sessions to successfully complete your course.
Within this highly interactive web-based course, a dynamic learning experience awaits, where you can interact with your fellow course participants through the in-course chat forums and communication tools provided by the CPD College learning system.
Our friendly and knowledgeable tutors actively support each course, providing expert interaction, guidance and feedback for all participants on chat questions and assignments which call for critical reflection, self-analysis and a reasoned response.
On successful completion of your course, you can download and print off your CPD record and certificate of completion.
We look forward to welcoming you to your course.
The aims of this e-learning course are:
- To provide teachers with the knowledge, skills and understandings to systematically skill and practice children in the art of public speaking across each year of primary school
- To deliver to teachers a rich suite of ideas and activities to enable children to powerfully pitch and present their ideas to an audience
- To introduce teachers to the new Let’s Stand Public Speaking Programme for primary schools
- To highlight the many benefits that accrue to the child through acquiring public speaking skills, competence and confidence
- To equip teachers with a common lesson structure that they can replicate across numerous topics as they cultivate, lay down and grow the children’s public speaking skill set
- To inspire teachers to utilise a public speaking skills approach as a conduit to purposefully deliver the learning outcomes of the primary language curriculum
- To champion a public speaking approach as part of the new language curriculum
- To detail and build awareness & knowledge of all the facets that coalesce through practice to equip a child to stand up and effectively speak / present
- To review, plan and action points for improvement in their ‘Teacher Practice in Literacy’ as part of the SSE process
| 01 - Public Speaking and the Primary Language Curriculum: championing a Public Speaking skills development approach as part of the primary language curriculum. We inspire all to take a systematic skills development approach in order to build and progress children's competence and confidence to pitch and present their ideas to an audience. To do that they need to prepare properly, practice effectively & present successfully – follow the 3 Ps approach. There are rules for listener, speaker and evaluators to follow. We detail the first four skills, connect to the LET’S Stand programme, provide and consider sample lesson structures, link to the primary language curriculum and identify a suite of 20+ topics that can inspire and be the basis for presentations e.g. tell a joke, invent a product and present it in Dragon’s Den, Three actions we can all take for climate change, recite a monologue etc. |
| 02 - A focus on skills development: making oral language come really alive in the classroom. We examine what it is to be an active listener, present ten solid oral language activities and outline a suggested process to follow when developing a public speaking presentation. We focus on the next suite of four public speaking skills/requisites and conclude with a review of the importance of audience within the public speaking equation, providing ideas/tips/strategies for effectively communicating with same. |
| 03 - Rehearsal and practice: prepare carefully and rehearse voraciously. We emphasise the need for children to rehearse their presentations as practice, practice and even more practice; providing a suite of rehearsal techniques, a rehearsal checklist, a clarity test, presentation rules and more. We detail a further three focus box/public speaking skills and provide a suite of lessons, techniques & approaches, tips and strategies to help children remember and deliver the prepared speech. The curriculum is a seedbed of material for children to speak on e.g. connecting into mathematics, children can be given maths topics to prepare and present on e.g. Number in our World, Pattern all around Us, A World of Shapes etc. You choose topics to suit your class level. |
| 04 - The centrality of voice and body language: developing vocal techniques and understanding the power of body language. We explore activities that help develop the key vocal techniques of volume, pitch, pace and the use of silence, all contextualised within a fun joke telling exercise that makes use of good comic timing. We follow on with a look at body language, exploring the messages the body conveys, good & bad. Finally, we delve into the techniques that one can use to establish and maintain the personal composure required to make a successful presentation. |
| 05 - Delivering the performance: from writing the speech to the opening hook to the closing bang - a checklist for getting it all right. When exploring content items that can be used for development into a speech / presentation / performance, it is important that the subject matter is relatable to the student and that the student is interested in it. We suggest how to identify that topic/story, choose and craft that content in writing, from selecting a topic to locating and gathering more information about the topic, to keeping all specific and on message for a set 2 to 3-minute presentation, to using evaluation rubrics to judge standards. |
“Super course. In this day and age of presentations for everything, public speaking skills are a must-have. So much oral language development going on with these activities, I know the kids in my class will love it." Lorna, 2022