Choosing Your Child’s Public Speaking Experience – Which Programme Should It Be?
Choosing a public speaking programme for your child may not be a straightforward task. Between the regular stage-speech training to story-crafting or interview preparation, you may find it difficult to sieve through the options and find one tailored for your child. More importantly, you would want to ensure that your children set off on a strong, confident start in this learning journey instead of going through a negative starting experience.
For us, choosing a suitable experience goes beyond a ‘brand’ name or star power. The learning journey for a soft skill like this tends to be two-way, and your child’s unique needs should be considered as well. The three questions to ask are the Why, How, and What questions (we will elaborate on them below). Each of these queries will help shape your understanding of the role of such public speaking training and why your child should join one!
To help you on this decision journey, here are the three considerations to keep in mind!
#1. Understanding the “Why”
While we believe in the importance of public speaking as a skill to nurture (especially at a young age), it is important to ensure that your child shares the same motivation. This is the “Why” question. Public speaking may be an essential skill, but your child needs to understand and appreciate its significance as well. This can involve a conversation about “Why” they may find such public speaking skills useful or what outcomes they can expect when applying these skills in their communication settings.
#2. Unpacking the “How”
It may be difficult to determine what makes a good learning methodology for such soft-skills training. Some parents may value a progressive, incremental approach; some may prefer a more targeted learning objective. This touches on the key question of “How” – in choosing the preferred public speaking programme for kids, focus on the background of Trainers, the consistency of the learning experience, and the theory-practice balance for the classes. These aspects may differ for different programmes to suit your child’s public speaking needs!
#3. Following the “What”
Ultimately, these soft skills may apply differently based on their interests, passion, or context, especially for young learners. In this vein, another question to consider (with your child) is the “What” – What will my child use these skills for? Public speaking/communication skills function on a broad and specific level. The former focuses on general confidence, but the latter considers the type of communication settings that your child is likely to encounter. The learning experience will thus follow a target – be it in-class presentations, interviews, or general conversations.*** In the near future… ***