Public speaking insights
As many readers of the Blogland know, yours truly is a college professor. Most of the classes I teach are public speaking. Over time, I have gotten pretty good at teaching the subject. Add in years 0f working in corporate and political communication, I've learned more than a few things about what makes for good and bad speech.
When I was given my first teaching assignment, a public speaking class, by my department chair, I was ok with it, knowing that even a lot of tenure-track PhD holders started out teaching that class. I had - and still do - some ideas for more advanced courses, but figured that it would be some time before I could get a shot at teaching classes at a level usually reserved for those with PhDs.
After about a month in the classroom, what I hadn't realized after years in human resources and dealing with communication in the workplace finally dawned upon me: the ability to speak to an audience - from a work group or project team to a classroom to a national audience of millions - is a crucial career skill.
After that, I began to approach teaching the class with a lot more interest and enthusiasm, sharing insights from the workplace and trying to impress upon students that public speaking and their career will begin when they walk in for their second job interview, meet the HR and department management staff in the room. Their goal: pitch a presentation good enough to land them their first job. While I still hope to be able to teach at a more advanced level one day, I wouldn't want to give up teaching this subject as well.
So having said all of this, I'm going to start sharing some of these insights with my Blogland readers and invite you to join the discussion as well. Watch for some of Professor Capps' public speaking insights real soon.
When I was given my first teaching assignment, a public speaking class, by my department chair, I was ok with it, knowing that even a lot of tenure-track PhD holders started out teaching that class. I had - and still do - some ideas for more advanced courses, but figured that it would be some time before I could get a shot at teaching classes at a level usually reserved for those with PhDs.
After about a month in the classroom, what I hadn't realized after years in human resources and dealing with communication in the workplace finally dawned upon me: the ability to speak to an audience - from a work group or project team to a classroom to a national audience of millions - is a crucial career skill.
After that, I began to approach teaching the class with a lot more interest and enthusiasm, sharing insights from the workplace and trying to impress upon students that public speaking and their career will begin when they walk in for their second job interview, meet the HR and department management staff in the room. Their goal: pitch a presentation good enough to land them their first job. While I still hope to be able to teach at a more advanced level one day, I wouldn't want to give up teaching this subject as well.
So having said all of this, I'm going to start sharing some of these insights with my Blogland readers and invite you to join the discussion as well. Watch for some of Professor Capps' public speaking insights real soon.
Midway through the class, one of my students asked, "When do we start public speaking?"
I said, "Now, I'm the public and you're speaking to me. Every time you speak to your boss, your co-workers, your clients, it's a mini-speech."
It took a few minutes to get her talking again.....
Seriously, the biggest problem I see when I interview folks for jobs is that they commonly use slang.
Come on, folks!!!! You're in a job interview not chatting with your buddies...let's try some standard English!