Elevating Public Speaking Skills With Tools From Theater Arts
A workshop with an actor goes a long way in teaching students how to articulate and present their knowledge—and builds their confidence.
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Go to My Saved Content.In Brooklyn, New York, 8th-grade teacher Paloma Blandon emphasizes the importance of her students at The Co-op School not only grasping essential concepts, but also having the public speaking skills to be able to share them.
“In all of their classes, they are expected not only to understand the material, but be able to express it to someone else or to each other,” Blandon says. “They're often presenting, and so learning how to communicate ideas effectively, and in an engaging manner for an audience, is so important.”
That’s where actor and theater teacher Jocelyn Greene of Child’s Play NY comes in. By leading a workshop that shares some of the technical skills that actors employ on stage, she is able to help the middle school class strengthen their ability to articulate their ideas and feel more confident when presenting.
“A simple technical adjustment—an actor's tip about how to speak publicly—and their voices automatically become much more present and their ideas become much more cogent,” says Greene.
As Greene works through a series of scenarios and low-stakes exchanges, she asks them to reframe their jitters as a signal that they are about to embark on something new. By acknowledging nervousness, incorporating breathing exercises, and applauding their bravery, the students begin to feel more centered and prepared to share with a group. Additional exercises help students tune into the volume of their voices, their body language, and their intonation. By the end of the workshop, students practice using a reading they are all familiar with: Puck’s monologue from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The performances receive feedback (and applause!) from classmates.
As Blandon observed, “It was really amazing to see them improve. By the second and third time of them expressing the same idea, they were doing so with fewer filler words, more clarity, and more confidence.”
For more tips on supporting students in developing public speaking skills, see Jocelyn Greene’s article for Edutopia, “7 Ways to Help Young Students Speak With Confidence and Poise.”