Emergence: a Person-Centred Approach to Oral Rhetoric

Emergence: A person-centred approach to oral rhetoric

Author

Arran Stibbe
Humanities Department,
University of Gloucestershire

Summary

‘I feel so much more confident speaking in front of an audience, I never thought I would be able to do it’

This case study describes an approach to teaching practical oral rhetoric based on peer evaluation and small group work. Speaking in front of a group can be intimidating for students - as one student puts it, ‘I personally detest giving presentations, I find them extremely terrifying’. The ability to put oral rhetoric into practice is therefore as much an emotional skill as an intellectual one. The case study describes an approach based on person-centred counselling theory which proved successful in addressing both emotional and intellectual aspects of oral rhetoric, building students’ confidence and improving their ability to put the knowledge of rhetoric into practice for effective presentations. As the conclusion explains, the techniques used in the skills-based module described here can be adapted for use on content-based modules.

Background / context

There is a widespread, but probably untrue, piece of urban folklore which claims that people are more afraid of public speaking than they are of death. Yet whatever the relative magnitude of the fears, students do indicate extreme discomfort about speaking to an audience, describing their recollections of past class presentations with expressions such as ‘detest’, ‘extremely terrifying’, ‘incredibly nervous’, ‘flustered’, ‘worried’, and ‘sickened’. Skills in public speaking are clearly important in a world battered by monotonous bullet-point presentations, but students graduating from university often lack the necessary rhetorical skills to express themselves orally. The problem is partly related to the overwhelming priority that university education places on reading and writing to the detriment of oral skills. The problem runs deeper still, however, since the primary barriers preventing students from engaging confidently in public speaking are emotional ones, and universities have traditionally defined themselves as places dedicated to intellectual development with little or no consideration given to emotional development.

This case study describes a module which was designed to contribute to both intellectual and emotional development, to both writing and speaking. The module in question, Rhetoric in Practice, is a third year module taught in the English Language programme of the University of Gloucestershire. This is one of the last modules that students take before graduating, hence the title of this article, ‘Emergence’.

After three years of study, students will have gained the ability to critically analyse the language which surrounds them and shapes the society they are part of; they will have had opportunities to reflect on ethical frameworks for living and working in the changing world of the 21st century; and they will have gained the writing skills necessary to participate effectively in the workplace and in the wider society. The final step before emergence from university is for students to develop the confidence to overcome nervousness or even terror, and be able to express themselves clearly in oral presentations. At another level, oral presentation itself is a form of emergence, an emergence of self, where students can allow deeply held beliefs, values, ideas and opinions – ones which they previously lacked confidence to express publicly – to emerge.

The design of the emotional development side of the module was based on the assumption that the nervousness that students describe in expressing themselves orally in front of a group is a fear of negative reaction from the audience. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, the fear of negative reaction can decrease the quality of the presentation and make it more likely that the audience’s reaction will be negative, leading to more fear. Gaining confidence, then, requires breaking this vicious circle. There are a great variety of psychoanalytic theories and self-help materials which offer help in breaking vicious circles, particularly those related to self esteem and under-confidence in allowing the self to emerge. Some of these theories and techniques are more tried and tested than others, but there is one that stands out as being particularly well grounded and applicable to public speaking: person-centred counselling (1).

Person-centred counselling offers techniques for creating the kind of non-judgemental and encouraging atmosphere that is necessary for students to gain confidence in expressing themselves. According to the theory, there are three core conditions which need to be simultaneously applied by listeners in order to create the right kind of atmosphere: empathy, unconditional positive regard, and congruence (Rogers 2003). Empathy is something that fellow students are in the best position to provide since they are all ‘in the same boat’, as one student put it, hence the use of peer evaluation rather than evaluation by lecturing staff. Unconditional positive regard goes one step beyond non-judgementalism towards acceptance and appreciation of the place within the speaker that is the ultimate source of their words, rather than a narrow judgement of the outer forms of the words themselves. Expressions of positive regard are, on their own, insufficient unless the third condition, congruence, or genuineness, is met.

For any new module which is designed to facilitate emotional as well as intellectual development it is essential to monitor the impact on students very carefully (although it could be argued that it is just as important to consider the emotional impact of teaching in modules where the emotional factors are disregarded). The first run of Rhetoric in Practice was therefore accompanied by informal pedagogic research on the student experience, involving two questionnaires, a learning log, a focus group and an analysis of the actual performance of the students. This case study begins by giving enough information about practical arrangements for other practitioners to put the approach into practice. The conclusion weaves together the voices of the students themselves not only to demonstrate that the approach was highly successful, but also to help readers understand the factors which led to that success.

Activities / Practice

The main technique employed to help students develop their oral skills was the requirement that they give five carefully prepared speeches to a small group of their peers trained in active listening and appreciative criticism. The organisation of the groups adapted a technique used in business training, specifically in ‘Toastmasters’ speaking clubs (Toastmasters 2008), which has proven successful in developing oral ability. In these clubs, one person in a large audience acts as evaluator, and one as timer etc. However, the same style can be adapted to small groups with the following seven roles, which were explained to students as follows:

a) Facilitator - You are in charge of running the group smoothly. Start by asking everyone in the group if they have a speech to give, and write a list of names of people who will speak. Give a few words of welcome. Then introduce the first speaker. He/she will have 5 minutes to speak. You then ask for reports from the timer, the um-counter, the evaluator, the sub-evaluator, and then general feedback. You then introduce the next speaker.

b) Speaker - You will need to prepare your speech in advance on the speech presentation form and bring this form along to act as notes while you give your speech. When the facilitator introduces you, find someone to temporarily fill your role before starting to speak. Then stand at the front, pause for a little while, think about your first line and then launch into your speech. You have 5 minutes and will be told when to stop.

c) Evaluator - It’s your job to make some brief helpful comments. This must be done sensitively and politely because the aim is to encourage and build confidence. Praise the good things, and if necessary make one or two suggestions for improvement (e.g. ‘more eye contact would be useful’). Always make the comments positive and constructive, e.g, ‘could be a bit slower’ rather than ‘it was too fast.’

d) Sub-evaluator –The sub-evaluator spots all the rhetorical devices used by the speaker and reports them later to the group.

e) Timer - Start a stopwatch when speakers start talking. At 4½ minutes, clearly place a sign in front of the speaker which reads ‘30 seconds left, please wrap up now’. At 5 minutes place a sign saying ‘stop now please’ clearly in front of them. Write down exactly how long the speaker takes.

f) Um-counter - You will count the number of times that the speaker says ‘ah’, ‘um’, ‘er’ and write the total number down. If in doubt as to whether the speaker really did say ‘ah’, do not count it. Notice also obvious repetitions of verbal crutches like ‘ok’, ‘right’, ‘well’ and make a note of them.

g) Audience member - you will be an active, supportive listener. That means really listening to what the speaker is saying, with genuine interest. Imagine that what you are hearing is essential information that you must remember afterwards. Smile, give eye-contact and nod as appropriate for someone listening with interest. Nothing should be false - if you listen carefully to people who are expressing what they genuinely feel and believe, and keep an open mind, you’ll find it almost certainly a pleasant and positive experience.

Students were given strict instructions on how to prepare speeches, including a preparation form which listed presentation aspects to focus on (eye contact, pacing, voice projection, etc), and listed rhetorical devices to incorporate into the presentation (three part list, contrast, metaphor, etc). The following example is of this preparation form filled out in an exaggerated way to illustrate rhetorical devices:

Sample Speech Preparation Form
Audience Analysis / Main Body (bullet points, but with some rhetorical devices written in full)
[eg,Metaphor: The intrigue of stamps lies in the fact that they are sent out across the world [pause] as ambassadors. And each one [stress] has something to say about their home. Three-part-list: Often the most war torn, unstable and poor countries
Contrast: have the largest, most colourful and proudest stamps. -show examples on PowerPoint, explain where they’re from-Rhetorical question: What does the humble British stamps say about our country?Answer, 3- part list: Proud of monarchy, understated, no need to proclaim our greatness.etc.]
Conclusion (written in full)
The conclusion is very important because it’s what the audience will take away with them. Use a combination of metaphor, contrast, 3-part-list, alliteration and/or repetition to close. [e.g, Far from being boring, far from being dull, the world of stamps is interesting, intriguing and, ultimately, inspiring]
This is where you say who is in your intended audience and whether they will be resistant to your message. [eg, university students who probably detest stamp collectors]
Core Message
This is what you (privately!) hope to persuade your audience of [eg, that stamp collecting is interesting and that I’m not a nerd]
Rhetorical Devices (circle)
metaphor analogy simile anecdote 3-part list
contrast: contradiction comparison opposite
puzzle/solution rhetorical-question repetition
alliteration other:
Presentation points to focus on (circle)
pace eye-contact pauses voice-projection
breathing eliminating-ums/ahs intonation
informality relaxation
Opening (write in full)
To create a catchy opening, try using a rhetorical question, an anecdote, or a puzzle/solution. [eg, Puzzle: They may be small, but right, now at this very moment, there’s hundreds of millions of them travelling around the world. Solution: They are, of course, stamps]
Introduction (bullet points)
You now need to let the audience know what your talk will cover [e.g., not exciting, glamorous, sexy but intriguing - will explain why]

When the students gave speeches, they did not use a script but instead used the brief notes on the preparation form as hints. The evaluators used a matched form to provide constructive feedback on exactly those aspects that the speaker had prepared:

Sample Evaluation Form: Title of talk ………………………………………………….
What core message did you get from this talk?
What rhetorical devices did you notice? (circle)
metaphoranalogy simile anecdote 3-part-list contrast: contradiction comparison opposite
puzzle/solution rhetorical-question repetition alliteration other:
Place an X to show where you think the speaker is in the scale
pace: (perfect)………………...... (too fast) / eye-contact: (perfect)………………….....(too little)
pauses: (perfect)……………………..(too few) / voice-projection (perfect)…………………(too soft)
formality (perfect)………………...(too formal) / intonation (perfect)………………...... (monotonous)
PowerPoint (perfect)…………...(too much text) / movement (perfect)…………………..…...(too still)
Um-count and any comments from um-counter:
Timing and any comments from timer:
Aspects which were particularly good:
Aspects which could be improved:

The five presentations that students are required to give correspond to chapters of the excellent textbook Lend me your ears: all you need to know about making speeches and presentations (Atkinson 2003). Reading the required chapter of the textbook provides details about aspects of rhetoric which are particularly relevant to that speech, and the preparation and evaluations forms use the same terminology as the book. The students were given the following information about the content of each speech:

a) The opening speech: Think of this speech as a first step to speaking a language which is different from writing and different from conversation: the language of Rhetoric. For now, think of it as a language which is slow, with lots of pauses, is informal, requires eye contact with the audience, and only makes one main point. If you exaggerate these points you will find you end up sounding quite natural, so exaggerate away! Read chapters 1 to 3 of the textbook for tips.

b) The visual speech: This is a chance for you to give a speech which uses PowerPoint well, i.e., in a way which enhances your speech rather than distracting from it. That means minimal use of text in your slides. Limit your slides to: blank slides for when the focus needs to be on you not the screen, highly relevant pictures/photographs, short quotes, short headings which come up one at a time in large font, or graphs/charts. Read chapters 4 and 5 for tips

c) The persuasive speech: In this speech you will be putting Rhetoric into practice. Choose a topic which you feel strongly about - it could be capital punishment, the destruction of ecosystems, feminism, the treatment of animals in zoos, alienation, or any other contentious issue that you have an opinion about. Your goal is to persuade that audience of your side of the argument. Pack your speech with rhetorical devices and combinations of devices and see what kind of impact it has on the audience. Read chapter 6 first.