Public speaking skills prepare children to thrive in today’s world. Public speaking enables a kid to articulate words and present information to an audience.
Public speaking builds confidence in your child and gives him or her a great advantage in the educational and career journey.
The following tips will assist you to improve your kid’s public speaking skills.
Reading
Encourage your child to read and provide him or her with appropriate reading materials.
Reading enables your child to acquire a wider range of vocabulary which aids in public speaking. Your kid would also get to visualize different scenarios as presented in the books.
Writing
Teach and encourage your kids to write. Writing enables kids to improve their vocabulary, visualize, and communicate. Writing enables kids to learn how to convey meaning with words.
A good writer is able to organize thoughts and gives the confidence to present information in written or spoken form.
A child who can write can take the next step to read or speak to an audience.
Teach them the basics
As a parent or guardian, you can teach your children the basics of public speaking which includes:
- Writing or preparing the content of your speech
- How to introduce yourself
- Making use of body language
- Eye contact
- Reading the audience
As a parent, don’t worry too much about grammatical errors when your kid is practicing public speaking. The aim is to give them the confidence to speak. Their vocabulary can gradually be corrected or improved upon.
Enroll them in a public speaking class
This is one way to improve your child’s public speaking. He or she will get to meet, interact and learn together with other kids.
You might also make use of online coaching classes if that would be more convenient.
Role Play
You can organize public speaking games or sessions at home with your kids. Create different scenarios and let them assume roles.
Possible options for role play include:
- A politician addressing followers
- Teacher lecturing in class
- Priest addressing a congregation
- A manager talking to a group of employees
- Student presenting a paper in class
Movies and Videos
Public speaking movies and videos are a great way to teach your kid public speaking. Three public speaking movies I would recommend are:
- The Kind’s Speech (2010)
- The Great Debaters (2007)
- The Great Dictator (1940)
Jayne says
Nice one