Public Speaking Workshop

“All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist

From the 10th of August, 2022 a public speaking workshop was conducted at The Bhawanipur Education Society College by Ms. Samiksha Khanduri, who is an educator and author. The workshop was conducted over a course of 15 days, each session of two hours and divided into 2 separate batches of students (11am – 1pm and 3pm – 5pm). 30 students, mostly 2nd year and 3rd year undergraduates participated in the workshop and all students are welcome to join the subsequent sessions.

The main aim of this workshop was that students should feel comfortable communicating in public and forming inter- personal relationships. The event started off with some interactive games which would make them familiar with the idea of public speaking, like ‘On Me Now’, where students have to talk about things they are wearing or carrying with them at the moment, namely their personal belongings. Another such activity was ‘I have a Dream ‘, inspired by Martin Luther King Jr in which students talk about their aspirations and life goals. ‘Spotlight effect’ was an activity dealing with issues like stage fright by making students talk about their weakness, this was also dealt with using a SWOT analysis. The first hour of the session was about the various principles and basic concepts of public speaking and the next hour for the students to interact with the teacher, as we see them trying to articulate their opinions about different schools of thought. The students are further encouraged to talk about their issues through one-on-one sessions with Ms. Samiksha Khanduri. The last day of the workshop was about ‘stage presence and the preparation for delivery of speech’ where they will eventually give a speech, hence fulfilling the objectives of their training. They will also be receiving a merit certificate from the college on successful completion of the workshop. The sessions have been extremely enjoyable for the teacher and the students alike and the Bhawanipur College looks forward to such highly productive interactive sessions in the future.

Report by Rishav Nayak,
English Department