Recent brain-based research has indicated that learning by experience alone is only a small part of the total learning process.
Public speaking classes are all about both doing and assessing.
While the experience is valuable, students need to take the time to review and process what just happened with their classmates. Coaches have always known to break down each game for the players on videotape or the chalkboard to evaluate what happened and how to improve for the next time out. For gifted students to develop as speakers, they too will need to do some work after each speaking event with their classmates. After each speech the class should assess that student’s efforts so that he or she can take an honest look at the presentation, help the speaker decide what was done well and what needed to improve, and guide the speaker’s plans for the next trip to the back of the podium. While speaking experiences will help students become accustomed to public speaking, processing their efforts with their peers will help them to develop the confidence to communicate! The key is that the communication is both accurate and honest. Here is a simple exercise to drive home that point.
Exercise – the Telephone Game
Sometimes messages are lost in a large group as communication breaks down. A good group exercise to illustrate this point is the children's game "telephone." Everyone sits in a circle. One person thinks up a long sentence (e.g., the circus will be in town next Friday, and stay until everyone sees the clowns.) The original person whispers the sentence to another, who in turn passes it on to the next, and so on. The last person should then say the sentence aloud. Odds are that the sentence will have mutated substantially by the time it reached the last person. Try this in your GATE class loaded with highly creative students!
