Toastmasters
Toastmasters was a six week project that helped me to improve my speaking skills. Every week, the group would write and present their speeches. If you were not partaking in this then you would be given a role. There were many roles to take if you did not want to say your speech like:
- Timer – keep the people in time by using the traffic light system
- Grammarian – comes up with a word for the whole session and see if people use it
- Ah counter – counts the amount of filler words used
- Quote master – finds a quote for people to use
- Evaluator – go over other people’s speeches and give 2 goods and one improvements
- Prime minister/toastmaster – leads the session for 3 weeks and introduce and finish each speech
I learnt a lot from the session. I learnt how to keep the speaker engaged by not using too many points and using the power of three. I also learnt how to manage my use of space and not move too much so that it was not so distracting. I have taken away the power of 3, only using 3 points, and using space properly.
I think that this is a good thing for people to do in future to not only improve their speaking skills but their general oracy skills. It is a good skill to use in the future for things like interviews. Even If you believe you are already good enough there’s still room to improve as you get custom feedback from the Toastmasters leaders. It is also nice to speak to people you know so you feel safe to talk to them and you feel comfortable and safer when you speak in front of others.
I would recommend Toastmasters to others!
Tendai M
