Year 9 Talk the Talk

Year 9 develop confident and creative communication in a ‘Talking about Communication’ workshop that advanced their oracy and presentation skills

On Thursday 11th May, all year 9 students participated in a ‘Talking about Communication Express’ workshop led by the ‘Talk the Talk’ organisation. We started the workshop by discussing our levels of confidence with public speaking and scoring ourselves; we all put low scores! The workshop showed us how to use body language effectively when talking in public as well as the different uses of intonation and pitch. We worked in groups, talking over various scenarios, thinking about the different viewpoints people can have and how to use personalised examples and experiences to elaborate on a particular point of view. Each person in the group had a particular role e.g. to introduce our view, to give an example backing up our view, to give an alternative view point. We presented our thoughts to everyone to practice our public speaking but with the support of our team. Finally, we used the confidence we had built up and the skills we had learnt, to speak on our own for 2 minutes, on a topic that we felt passionately about. We all managed to give our solo presentations and when we scored ourselves at the end of the workshop, our confidence in public speaking was much higher. This workshop really helped us with our communication skills and confidence when speaking to a large group. It was also great fun!

Olivia D