Public Speaking
Training Exercises and Resources

You have just finished delivering a course. Most trainers tend to be relieved that it is now out of the way, that there were no major technical issues, and, hopefully, most learners liked the course. They then tend to archive the material, move on to something else and forget about the course until they have to deliver it again the next time.

What have they missed doing?

Practicing improvisation exercises can greatly help with communication skills and help reduce fear of being on stage. In a controlled environment of a class, you can easily get delegates to practice telling stories, acting out roles and performing for a small audience. Such improvisation exercises are useful for presentation skills, reporting or performing in meetings. Actors routinely use these exercises to train themselves.

A few exercises are provided here so you can get ideas of what they are about and how to run them. Aim to match the improvisation exercises to your specific training needs and maximise learning.

Being a good trainer requires a set of skills. Like any other skill, you need to practice in order to get better at this skill. This is quite different from being good at the topic you are teaching. Unfortunately, many think that practice means conducting course after course and hopefully getting it right eventually. Sure enough, you may get a little bit better, but you won’t significantly improve your teaching skills unless you engage in what is known as “deliberate practice”. This term was popularised by the world-famous researcher on expertise, Anders Ericsson.

In the past couple of decades, numerous researchers have contributed to the concept of deliberate practice and the findings are quite interesting and educational, helping us to learn effectively and become an expert in anything.

A great book published in this area is called, “Talent is Overrated: What really separates world-class performers from everybody else” by Geoff Colvin. It has become a classic book in the field along with, “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell.

Colvin proposes three distinct models of deliberate practice. Each model is suitable for certain activities or skills. Sometimes mastering complex skills requires the use of all three models. They are quite useful in inspiring you to come up with new exercises or in identifying strategies to address weaknesses.

In this article, you will be introduced to these three models and will learn how to apply them to the training world.

This is a technical activity to help avoiding speaker’s block while presenting. The aim is to follow a systematic approach in practicing over and over again until delegates are confident enough that they can deliver a speech without getting stuck. This a great activity in handling stage fright.

This is technical exercise to practice public speaking. It is designed to focus a presenter’s mind on a specific goal when giving a speech so it is delivered without pause. The exercise also helps to avoid mental blocks or the dreadful feeling of suddenly not knowing what to say or how to continue.

The exercise is loosely based on “Just a Minute”, a BBC Radio 4 radio comedy and television panel game.

This exercise helps with creative storytelling and impromptu delivery. It can also be used as an icebreaker to help delegates learn about each other. The choice of objects dictates what kinds of areas would be covered. Choose the object based on the background of delegates as well as their age. You can also use it for an exercise on creative writing or public speaking.

Being able to have an opinion about important subjects and defend that position is an incredibly important skill in life. Often, we come across such potentially heated debates during the course of a day, but the subjects are mainly to do with practical daily tasks rather than deeper philosophical issues. The solutions to such issues are usually non-obvious where many thinkers have been putting efforts in exploring them and providing insights.

This structured exercise provides an opportunity to practice debating on such topics in a controlled environment where the main focus is on the following:

• Practice presenting a viewpoint clearly, concisely and accurately
• Avoid exaggeration that can be used to derail a position by others
• Not getting emotional when others disagree and instead learning to see it from their point of view
• Have a conversation about a topic and learn something about it by listening to others

This is entertaining exercise on getting delegates to quickly think of a story to tell based on a visual prompt. The options allow you to bias the exercise based on what you want delegates to practice on. They can then get feedback on their storytelling.

This entertaining exercise helps delegates practice their acting in front of an audience. Each person will be required to deliver a speech about a given topic. You can vary the exercise by expecting a specific style of speech or just leave it completely uncontrolled. It is ideal for training on acting, storytelling and public speaking.