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Gloucester Students Learn the Ins and Outs of Public Speaking

Do you get weak knees, a racing heart, and butterflies in your stomach when you have to speak in front of an audience? If so, you aren’t alone: research has shown that between 50 percent and 75 percent of adults are afraid of public speaking. Despite this, corporate employers say that communication skills are the second-most important skill they consider when hiring new employees.

Two Gloucester County elementary schools have adopted a 4-H program that introduces public-speaking skills at a young age. The curriculum includes a wide variety of topics, including public speaking dos and don’ts, note card usage, and voice projection. Krista Gustafson, a 4-H agent involved with the program, says they try to make it as fun as possible for the children. “At the first meeting, Jackie Jefferis, our 4-H program assistant, gives a tutorial and a few examples of speeches and presentations strewn with common presenting mistakes. She drops her note cards, stands in front of her visuals with her back to the audience, fidgets, doesn’t look at the audience, giggles, and licks her fingers during a food presentation. The students critique her. They absolutely love doing this, and I think they really learn from it.”

In the month following the public-speaking tutorial, students conduct research and give a speech or presentation to their class; they are then evaluated. Gloucester County also holds a public-speaking contest for 4-Hers in Gloucester, Mathews, and Middlesex counties. Both the public-speaking skills program and the contest give students the opportunity to practice and fine-tune their public-speaking skills in front of a real audience.

About 150 students from T.C. Walker Elementary School and Botetourt Elementary School participated in the public-speaking, school-enrichment program. Of these students, approximately 90 percent said the program made them less nervous about speaking in public. Gustafson hopes the other four Gloucester County elementary schools will implement the program in the future. “Many of these kids discover it isn’t as scary as they thought it would be. We always get, ‘Hey, I am good at this,’ from at least a few youth every year.”