Public speaking helps youth find a voice
It is no coincidence that many great leaders are also outstanding public speakers. Leadership and public speaking require similar qualities: confidence, knowledge, passion, the ability to effectively communicate a message, and, as some may add, a touch of humour.
Like leadership, cultivating public speaking skills demands repetition and practice. But many schools put more emphasis on listening, homework and problem-solving, while neglecting a vital personal skill: English public speaking.
The Edge Learning Center aims to fill this void. 'We introduced a course on English Public Speaking because of latent demand for such instruction in Asia,' says CEO Duc Luu. 'The goal of the course is to give students confidence in themselves and improve their ability to communicate with others without imprinting public speaking gimmicks common to the oratory training circuit. Students are taught such concepts such as breath work, eye contact, audience connection, and using the rest of the body as a tool to communicate.'
Luu is a seasoned public speaker - from a dramatic angle, having trained as an actor while studying at Yale University.
The English Public Speaking course introduces students to various speeches, some by famous people and others produced by students. 'We like to use speeches from plays, TV, and film because such speeches focus more on passion and character, and tend to be less rhetorical and more creative,' says Luu.
'Many parents would like their children to find their voices to speak confidently and to better socialise. It is wonderful to be smart, diligent, and hard-working with great ideas, but if you cannot communicate those ideas effortlessly, then you will find yourself falling behind against your more socially capable peers,' Luu explains.
The course starts with physical preparations. 'We do a lot of vocal exercises and movement work to engage the voice and body early on. Then we teach kids to find their centres and their confidence through several theatre exercises. Afterwards, we build the vocal framework from syllable to sentence before finally working on and performing both self-written speeches and famous speeches to practise our newly learned skills as much as possible in front of a large audience,' Luu says.
The course fee is HK$3,520 for 16 hours of instruction. It is scheduled every two weeks during the summer, and periodically during the school year and the holidays.
