To explain the academic subjects, manage discipline in the classroom, conduct assemblies, and seminars, interact with parents and ensure proper growth and development of students, public speaking skills are a must for every teacher to possess and practice. For knowledge exchange, discussions and interactions teachers need to confront groups of students both inside and outside the classrooms. With effective public speakers, some teachers struggle with effective public speaking abilities. Let us discuss some steps that all educators can follow to boost their public speaking skills, grow in their profession, and give a valuable and meaningful learning experience to the students respectively.
How teachers can boost their public speaking skills: steps to follow
1. Be well prepared
The main point, where teachers need effective public speaking skills is in the classroom to teach the lessons to students. To do so, proper preparation is very important. Going to classes without any idea, plan or preparation can make classes look vague, weird, and less systematic.
To avoid this happening to you, make sure to do all the necessary preparation before the next classes. Using the course selling platforms, you can plan out all the activities that need to be conducted in the class, and prepare accordingly. The class performance, assessment records, and all other duties can be managed well using this tool.
- Subject expertise: for effective public speaking, you need to have proper knowledge of your subject. If you have insufficient information, you won’t be able to communicate well, or get stuck and confused again and again. So make sure that you have proper and in-depth knowledge of your teaching subject. Read, revise and prepare the topic.
- Question and answers: in classes, students face doubts and queries and they will surely ask you. Think about all the difficulties students can face and how you will explain them to them. You can think of some real-life examples, and stories that you can share for students’ doubt resolution.
2. Practice before the class
After preparing what you have to share with students in the class, you should practice it too. Yes, teachers face time constraints, but to teach effectively and boost your speaking skills, the one-time practice of your lecture is necessary. Go through the topic you will be teaching in the class. Sit in front of the mirror and demonstrate the lecture. Revise the to-do list you have made. This will help you to get familiar with the information and therefore you will be able to explain it in front of the students well. Your confidence level will also be enhanced this way.
3. Stay confident
If teachers are not confident, their public speaking traits will surely be affected. Trust yourself, stay positive and give your best in every class. To stay confident, have the right body language. Make eye contact with the students, dress up smartly and follow the right nonverbal communication skills. This will help you present the topic effectively to the students. By using an online course selling website, plan the class activities and conduct them in the same decided way to stay confident and communicate well in the classroom.
4. Learn from others
If you are a fresher teacher and face problems in public speaking and confronting the whole class, learning from others can be helpful. From your peer group, you can take permission of attending the lecture of the other senior teachers. You can see how effectively they speak, explain and ensure effective two-way communication in the class. Other than this, you can use technology too. YouTube is one of the biggest video uploading platforms. Here you can watch the videos of other educators and public speakers. You can see how keenly observe their skills and adapt the same for improvement and betterment.
5. Use multimedia
Sometimes, teachers get short of ideas, and examples when explaining the lessons in the class. Also in some cases, the important information just skips out of the mind and this affects teachers’ communication skills and confidence both. To overcome this problem, using multimedia in classes is very effective.
For example, for the lesson or topic, you are going to teach in the next class, prepare a video presentation of it beforehand. Using Microsoft Powerpoint, you can make one easily. In the presentation, you can add all the important pointers, images, texts, dates, etc that need to be taught. Now using this, you can give quality explanations and your public speaking skills will be boosted too. Picture cards, educational videos, modules, demonstrations, etc can also be used.
Conclusion
To become an effective teacher, and impart students a quality education, public speaking skills are a must. By following the above-mentioned tips which are proper planning, practicing, staying confident, using multimedia, and learning from others, teachers can enhance their public speaking skills to a great extent.
