Lesson video

This lesson is all about delivering persuasive speeches.

Hi, my name is Mr. Young and it's great to be with you in today's lesson.

So, let's get started.

So, today's learning outcome is as follows.

So, hopefully by the end of today's lesson, everybody should be able to do the following, which is to deliver a speech with confidence.

And as always, we have some very important words, our keywords that we are going to revisit throughout today's lesson.

So, let's have a look at what they are.

Posture, gesture, pitch, tone, and pace.

So, today's lesson is going to have two very clear learning cycles, which are really gonna help us to deliver persuasive speeches.

Our first learning cycle is all about body language, posture, and eye contact.

So, those things that are not necessarily what we're saying and the ideas we have, but how we are delivering them.

And then, we're gonna move on to learning cycle two, which is all about pitch, pace, and tone, so exactly how we are using our voice to deliver our speech.

So, let's get started on learning cycle one.

So, your first discussion task is all about advice.

So, you have a statement from Jun there, which is as follows, "Next week I'm giving a speech to my school.

I know exactly what I wanna say, but I'm unsure of how to deliver it.

I want to appear as confident as possible." So, your first task is as follows, what advice would you give to Jun on delivering his speech? Pause the video, have a quick discussion, and then push Play when you'd like to continue.

Okay, some great discussions to kick us off with learning cycle one.

And I'm particularly impressed by any groups that spoke about the idea maybe of body language, how Jun is using his voice, all of those things that are beyond the actual words of Jun's speech, which he seems to be really confident about anyway.

So, well done if you picked up on any of those.

So, let's have a bit more of a detailed look about that then please.

So, what do you think is required to deliver an effective speech? So, pause the video, have a quick discussion of ideas, and then push Play when you'd like to see some feedback for that question.

Okay, some really nice discussions taking place, and there's a real variety of comments that the students are saying.

And that is exactly right, there are lots of different ways we can make our speech effective.

So, let's take a look at what those are.

So, we might have said eye contact.

You know, it's really important that you maintain eye contact with your audience.

It makes your speech a lot more engaging if you do that.

Open body language, again, is another great way to make speeches effective.

Open body language puts your audience at ease and it just makes you much more accessible and engaging to the audience.

We may have also said keeping an upright posture and your posture is how you are keeping your body in an upright way.

This definitely communicates confidence if you're speaking.

We could have said avoiding fidgeting or excess movement.

Again, this is something that might distract from the main message of your speech.

If there is too much kind of movement, people might start to focus less on your words.

Use purposeful gestures to support your speech.

Again, we might use well-chosen gestures at certain parts of our speech to really make our message as impactful as possible.

We might also vary the pitch and tone of our voice.

This, again, makes it really, really engaging.

If a speech is delivered in a very similar pitch throughout the entire speech, it becomes very dull and monotonous and we want to avoid that as much as possible.

Again, memorising your speech can also make it really, really effective.

If you spend less time kind of looking down at your papers and more time looking up at your audience, this creates a really engaging atmosphere for your audience.

And finally, we may move purposefully across the stage if there is one.

So, we may choose to vary our position on a stage, again just to increase that variety in our speech.

So, well done if you picked up on any of these things, great job.

Okay, so our next discussion task then.

So, we have an image on the board in front of us, we have a an image of a gentleman that is delivering a speech.

So, what I'd like you to do then is to look closely at this man delivering the speech.

Do you think this speech is effective? And in particular I'd like you to think about the following things.

So, how could you discuss the speaker's body language, his eye contact, and his posture? How do those things potentially make this speech really effective? So again, pause the video, have a discussion, and then push play when you'd like to see some feedback.

Okay, some really nice ideas taking place on what is a very, very challenging task.

You know, this is just a still image of a speech, so it's really challenging to kind of maybe talk about how it's effective.

But I'd be super impressed if you came up with anything similar to what is on the board now.

So, firstly we might say, you know, his body language is very relaxed.

He has an open stance that seems informal and casual, and this engages the audience.

This would not be achieved, for example, if he had a closed, guarded stance, if his arms were crossed across his chest potentially.

Okay, well and also if you spoke about his eye contact.

So, the speaker's eye contact is towards the crowd.

He isn't looking at anyone directly, but he's surveying the crowd as a whole.

He's able to engage his audience by doing this.

And this wouldn't be possible if he was looking down at his speech.

If he was looking down during his speech, he would be kind of a bit more closed off, a bit more guarded and we wouldn't be able to relate to him as a speaker and potentially his speech would be less effective as a result.

And finally, well done if you spoke about his posture.

So, the speaker's posture is confident and upright, you know, he's stood up straight as he's addressing his audience.

So, this gives the impression he's secure in what he is saying and gives authority to his speech.

Again, this wouldn't be achieved if he had a timid, slouched posture.

So, well done if you picked up on any of those.

So, quick check for understanding for us then please.

So, true or force, when giving a speech, you should pick out one member of the audience and focus your eye contact on them? True or force? pause the video, have a quick discussion, and push Play when you'd like to continue.

Great job if you identified it as, of course, false.

But let's try and add the complexity to that question and try and justify our answer.

So, how could we justify that answer? Is it a, you shouldn't look at any members of the audience and instead you should focus on your notes, or is it b, you should look at your audience generally, varying your eye contact to generate greater engagement? Once again, pause the video, have a go at the task, and then do push Play when you like to continue.

Okay, great job if you identified b, it is, of course, you should look at your audience generally, varying your eye contact to generate greater engagement.

So, it can't be a, because, as we said before, looking down at your notes presents potentially a kind of closed off, timid body language which doesn't really communicate confidence, which might make our speeches less engaging.

So, well done if you picked up on that.

Okay, so we've reached our first practise task for today, and it is a performance-based task.

So, what I would like you to do is as follows.

So, in pairs perform the opening paragraph of your speech on introducing a new word to the dictionary.

As you deliver, make sure that you do the following: vary your eye contact across your audience, maintain an open body stance, ensure your posture is upright and confident, avoid fidgeting or excess movement, and use purposeful gestures to support your speech.

Okay, have a go.

Good luck, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how you get on.

Okay, some great work on that task, which is a really nice performance task and it was great to see how you all did so fantastically and how confident you are delivering your speeches.

So, let's self-assess your performance.

So, what I would like you to do is the following, so think about the following questions from your recent performance.

So, did you vary your eye contact across your audience? Did you maintain an open body stance? Did you ensure your posture was upright and confident? Did you avoid fidgeting or excess movement? And did you use purposeful gestures to support your speech? If there was any aspect of your speech you feel you didn't fully meet the criteria, then do repeat it if you have a chance with that in mind.

The best speeches are those that are rehearsed and practised many, many times, so please do bear that in mind, but great job, well done.

So, very well done, we have now moved on to learning cycle two.

So, we are going to focus now on three very specific things and they are pitch, pace, and tone.

So, quick discussion task then to kickstart learning cycle two.

So, your discussion question is as follows.

So, when delivering a speech, why shouldn't a student's speech be delivered with the same pace and same voice throughout? So, pause the video, have a quick discussion, and then push Play when you'd like to see some feedback.

Okay, some really nice discussions taking place.

Well done if you picked up anything similar to what is on the board now.

So, you know, this will make the speech quite boring.

It is important that a speaker varies the speed and style with which they speak to engage their audience.

If a speech was delivered at exactly the same speed with exactly the same voice throughout, you would very quickly switched off, you would find the speech very, very boring.

We want to avoid that.

So, a speaker can vary the way they deliver their speech in the following three ways, pitch, so this refers to the highness and lowness of your voice, so the extent to which your voice changes.

Pace refers to the speed with which you deliver your speech.

So, how quickly you are speaking or how slowly you are speaking.

And finally, tone refers to the attitude and emotion of your voice.

So, crucially, different speeches will require different tones.

So, let's take a look now at how that might actually work in practise.

So, we've got an extract from a speech on the board in front of us.

I am going to read that out for you and I would like you to do the following things.

I would like you to think about my pitch, so does the pitch change in the speech as I read it out? And secondly, what is the overall effect on the impact of the speech as a result of my pitch? So, let's have a look at an example, "There I am: sitting on the train, gazing out the window as I start to see the imposing buildings melt away.

The fields appear as if from an underground hideaway, the city morphs gently into the countryside.

I'm going home.

The feeling stirs my stomach first, excitement, elation.

My thoughts wander to what will greet me: my dad's slippers, the face my sister pulls at the jokes I attempt to tell, my mom's comforting embrace.

I can only be feeling one thing, hometicipation." So, pause the video and have a quick discussion about those two questions.

Does did my pitch change when I delivered that? And what was the overall impact of the speech as a result? Pause the video and push Play when you'd like to see some feedback.

So, great job if you identified that my pitch didn't really change.

I didn't really vary the highness or the lowness of my voice, it kind of stayed pretty neutral throughout.

And secondly, the impact as a result was it made the speech less engaging.

I simply didn't engage as much as I would otherwise because the pitch of my speech did not vary.

So, my next question is as follows then.

So, how could the pitch be amended to make this speech more engaging? So, once again, pause the video, have a discussion, and then push Play when you'd like to see some feedback.

Okay, some really nice discussions, and well done to all of all of you who picked up on the idea that by varying your pitch, varying the highness and lowness of your voice, you can make your speech much more engaging.

So, this is something we do already without even thinking about it in our course of our normal conversations.

So, it's just something that is really important that we focus on when delivering speeches.

So, let's move on to the next part of the learning cycle, which is all about pace.

So, remember, the pace of a speech is the speed at which it is delivered.

So, my next question is as follows.

So, if you were delivering this speech, how might you change the pace at different points? So, a really challenging question there, so pause the video, have a discussion, and then push Play when you'd like to see some feedback.

Okay, some really nice discussions taking place and something that is really important that we're always remembering, you know, the pace at which we deliver our speech really, really goes hand in hand with how engaging it can be for the audience.

So, some ideas you may have said are as follows.

So, firstly, you know, the opening might be read at quite a quick pace, the student is on a train and the pace might reflect the journey, quick, purposeful.

It also might serve to just really engage us at the beginning of the speech, so that might be why we might want a very quick pace.

So, secondly, we've got this bit here where the student is talking about their dad's slippers, their sister's jokes that they tell, and their mom's comforting embrace.

So, we might read this a bit more slowly to show their importance to the speaker in relation to their new word.

So, it really might help with the delivery of this example if it slowed down a little bit.

And finally, we've also got this bit here so the sentences get smaller here, I can only be feeling one thing, hometicipation.

So, the speaker is purposefully amending their pace here to build tension for the reveal of the word.

So, in this case we might say we might want the pace to get a bit slower to really make that reveal of the word as impactful as possible.

So, it's really important to be aware of your pace when delivering speeches.

Okay, and finally, we are going to move on to tone.

So remember, once again, tone is all about mood and emotion.

So, what might the tone of this speech be? So, remember this is a speech about adding the word hometicipation to the dictionary, and it's going to be delivered to fellow classmates.

So, pause the video, have a think, and then push Play when you'd like to see some feedback.

Okay, some great discussions taking place and great work if you identified anything similar to these.

So, because it is a quite lighthearted speech, it is to a friendly audience, and it is about a fairly light and entertaining topic, we might expect the tone to be one of the following.

We might expect it to be warm or joyful, upbeat, celebratory, relaxing, uplifting, or perhaps cheerful.

And great job if you identified anything similar.

Okay, quick check for understanding then please.

So, variations in the highness and lowness of your voice in a speech are known as what? Is it pitch, is it pace, or is it tone? Pause the video, complete the task, and then push Play when you'd like to continue.

Okay, great job if you identified it as pitch.

When we vary the highness and lowness of our voice, it is known as pitch.

So, when we vary our voice in this way, it makes our speech much more engaging.

Okay, we've now moved on to our final practise task for this lesson, and it is as follows.

So, I would like you to perform your entire speech on introducing a new word to the dictionary to the rest of the class.

As you deliver, make sure that you vary your eye contact across your audience, maintain an open body stance, ensure your posture is upright and confident, avoid fidgeting or excess movement, use purposeful gestures to support your speech, vary your pitch, adjust your pace throughout your speech, and choose the right tone for your speech.

So, lots of things there, but all the things that we've covered throughout today's lesson.

So, have a go at the task, I'm really excited to see how you get on, and then push Play when you would like to see some feedback to this task.

Good luck.

Okay, some really nice speeches taking place there, I'm really impressed that all you've learned, and how you are able to include that in your own speeches.

So, really well done for that.

So, your task, your feedback task is a self-assessment task.

So, I would like you to do the following please.

Can you self-assess your performance on introducing a new word to the dictionary to the rest of the class? So, when you delivered your speech, did you do any of the following? Did you vary your eye contact across your audience? Did you maintain an open body stance? Did you ensure your posture was upright and confident? Did you avoid fidgeting or excess movement? Did you use purposeful gestures to support your speech? Did you vary your pitch? Did you adjust your pace throughout your speech? And did you choose the right tone for your speech? So, well done on all of those things that you included.

And if there's anything there you feel maybe could be improved, then set that for a target for next time.

Okay, excellent work on today's lesson, which has been all about delivering persuasive speeches.

I'm so impressed by all of the hard work you've done and how you are incorporating it into your fantastic delivery of your speeches, so really well done.

So, by way of quick recap then.

Today, we have covered the following things.

We have learned that body language and eye contact support the successful delivery of a speech.

We've learned that pace, pitch, and tone can help to emphasise important words.

We've learned that gesture and posture can be used to engage the audience and to add emphasis to important points.

We've learned that spoken language often needs to be slower than feels natural.

And finally, that speeches are much more engaging when the speaker does not simply read off a page.

Once again, really well done on all of your work throughout this lesson and throughout this unit.

So, great job, and I look forward to seeing you next time.

Thank you.