What Goes into A Lesson Plan? Preparing a Public Speaking Course For You

If you have ever been curious about what goes into a public speaking or communications training lesson plan, this article is for you! We recently shared about how we plan our corporate and school training (Click HERE to read: “Designing the Best Communications Course for You – What Goes into a Corporate or School Public Speaking Training”), and we thought of expanding on that to share more about the behind-the-scenes of what goes into our training programme generally. In particular, you will be able to find out about the ‘secret sauce’ that goes into our recipe for our programmes!

Planning a lesson plan for a public speaking training or class is not straightforward. Some of us in the training team have faced queries about how a lesson plan is crafted. For some, the lesson plan is developed in the same manner as any tuition class – by following a general syllabus. For others, the crafting process simply involves regurgitating the same content for all the classes. The actual process is definitely more thorough! A proper and strong lesson plan ensures that the students’ public speaking training experience is enhanced and valuable.

To start, here are some general considerations that our training team look out for in preparing our lesson plans for our programmes.

✅ To Do #1:

Understand Your Audience Member’s Learning Needs

One of the key ingredients in crafting the lesson plan is understanding the audience member’s learning needs. In this sense, the lesson plan is not just prepared for the trainer’s benefit but to ensure that the lesson is appropriate, relevant and effective for the students’ learning objectives. Understanding the learning objectives may involve research, discussions, or even adapting from prior classes to ensure that the public speaking techniques are always updated for the contemporary setting. This also considers the long-term public speaking learning journey instead of focussing on the short-term aim in the lesson being prepared for.

You may wonder if this customisation only applies to our private or corporate training – not necessarily! Even for a group setting such as our Speech Excellence Programme (public speaking for kids) and World Champion Certification Programme (public speaking for adults), the lesson plan is designed to match the general class progress and capabilities. For example, the experiences shared to illustrate the techniques will differ depending on the general class trait such as age or background (e.g. sales, technical). By taking all these factors into account, the lesson plan is still tailored to our students’ learning needs.

✅ To Do #2:

Break the Monotony – Disrupt the Flow

With all the focus on public speaking or communication techniques, it is tempting to fill the entire session with information and theory. This may come across as a dry, technical, or academic lecture, with little relevance or awareness to the audience learning needs. While giving value during the session is still paramount, the lesson plan should be designed to ensure that the students are thoroughly engaged.

This means that our lesson plans are developed with specific pattern breaks allocated to guide our training team during the lesson. One of the main pattern break tools adopted is the use of stories or specific experiences to illustrate or emphasise the significance of the techniques covered. These experiences from our trainers offer a varied learning experience compared to the typical classroom or one-way teaching setting. In short, the lesson plan is designed for both fun and learning for our students!

✅ To Do #3:

Deliverables – Ensuring an Actionable Call to Action

A call to action is not a consideration unique to a sales setting. For a lesson, the students should be able to pick out the key deliverables for their learning journey for the day. This has to be something attainable, and a proper lesson plan will set out an easy, guided path for the students to follow to reach their learning objective for the day. For example, while this is a public speaking course, the end-deliverable may not be a full speech, but a focus on a technique exercise instead.

For example, in a speech crafting class, the lesson plan may set out a weekly guide on how to craft the complete speech. Each week may be focussed on various aspects of the process, such as introduction design or speech delivery. This ensures a bird’s eye view of the students’ progress and encourages them to participate in a measurable process. If too high a bar is set, a student is more likely to be discouraged or distracted.

Try One Yourself!

As you can see, the lesson plan design for public speaking training is not easy. Beyond just the Public Speaking Academy, most, if not all, public speaking and communication trainers invest time and effort to research into the content, design the best structure, and deliver an effective programme for their respective students. The next time you attend a public speaking training or course, keep an eye out for some of the lesson plan features we have mentioned!

This article is more than just a selling pitch. We understand that not everyone may know what goes into our communications course crafting process or where the investment goes into. As we have shared, crafting a communications course requires time, effort, and dedicated focus. For us at the Public Speaking Academy, the training quality and learning experience form an important aspect in the crafting process. That said, if this has piqued your interest in our courses, feel free to reach out to us to design the perfect, tailored course for you!

Attention all HR managers and Training & Development Heads:

If you’re keen to take your colleagues or students’ public speaking & presentation skills (either business/corporate presentation or kids in-class presentation respectively) to the next level so that they may public speak and present with flair and charisma, feel free to check out our public speaking corporate training offerings below!

List of customizable skill-sets from our Public Speaking Course for Adults :

https://publicspeakingacademy.com.sg/courses-and-programs/group-classes-for-adults/

List of customizable skill-sets from our Public Speaking Course for Kids / Children:

https://publicspeakingacademy.com.sg/group-classes-students-age-9-18/

*To seek a quotation for your next customized public speaking training/ presentation skills training:

Feel free to drop us a message at: https://publicspeakingacademy.com.sg/contact/