Public Speaking Training at the Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights

In November 2013, the Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights (AMWCHR) enlisted the help of Free Debate to deliver public speaking training to around 15 young men and women from the Alawi community in Melbourne. The training was part of a project organised by AMWCHR called 'Speaking Across the Sectarian Divide', which aimed to develop leadership capacity in the Muslim Alawi, Alevi and Sunni youth communities in Melbourne, and encourage them to become leaders in building an inclusive Muslim community that is respectful and celebratory of difference.

Over the course of a Sunday afternoon, Carmel Wallis, Lynn Featonby, Sam Whitney and Miranda Anwar from Free Debate trained the participants on how to deliver an engaging and effective speech in public by improving the style, structure and content of the speech. Each participant was then given two opportunities to practice their public speaking skills – once in a small group and once in front of all other participants. All participants rose to the challenge and delivered well-structured speeches on a topic of their choice in an engaging manner.

Free Debate with Teach For Australia

Free Debate members ran a facilitated session for Teach For Australia’s recruits as part of the TransformED conference. Focusing on the question “What levers are most important in transforming outcomes for disadvantaged students?” members of the conference worked with experts from a variety of fields relating to education. Each group advocated for their assigned field, arguing passionately that either government, community, principals or teachers were best placed to effect change for disadvantaged students. The session concluded with the participants voting for the group they found most convincing, via a poll accessed on the Free Debate website.

TransformED Conference - Stakeholder Debate Poll

That Disadvantaged Students are Best Helped by the Actions of...

TEST POLL

That Voting Should Be Voluntary

The results are in: Feedback on the FreeDebate Enabling Day

FreeDebate's Annual Enabling Day was held earlier last month.  Feedback from attendees was largely positive. Less than 5% of feedback was negative, rating a session as boring, useless, less relevant or uninteresting, around 5% of feedback was neutral, around 10% of feedback indicated a session was not attended or recalled and around 80% of feedback was positive, rating the session as above average, relevant and/or interesting. Special thanks goes out to our guest speakers Amit Golder and Nita Rao who delivered outstanding presentations on the day.

Passionate speeches from AMES students

In the second of two sessions today, ESL-background students attending a pronunciation class with Adult Multicultural Education Services broke new ground in their ability to confidently communicate and speak in front of an audience.   Last week, students rose to the challenge of focussing on confident presentation despite feelings of nervousness and language difficulties, whilst conducting a persuasive speech centred around something they would like to change in the world.  This week, students took their skills to the next level. They provided signposted speeches with reasoned content in a passionate, responsive and engaging debate about the pros and cons of vegetarianism.

FreeDebate Enabling Day 2013

FD held its Annual Enabling Day, drawing participants from a diverse range of backgrounds including those with teaching, coaching, public speaking, debating, volunteer and partnership interests.

Experienced FD and guest speakers covered topics such as advanced manner tactics, how to introduce novices to debating and activities to encourage public speaking.  The session concluded with a group challenge activity addressing team dynamics as well as a Q&A session with 2013 Worlds Universities Debating Championships winner, Nita Rao.

Public Speaking with Rotary and Foundation Boroondara

The people of Foundation Boroondara enlisted FD to help some local students prepare for the Rotary 4 Way Test Speaking Competition.  The initial session with around 8 students late in 2012 produced a significant improvement in the confidence and presentation ability of the participants, which flowed through to a real improvement in their results at the competition.

Many of the participants were keen to build on that training beyond the competition so they attended a further 2 sessions with FD trainers in March 2013.  The training focused on confidence, speech structure and argument development.  When asked to make a persuasive speech highlighting a problem and proposing a solution at their schools they displayed enthusiasm and creativity, while identifying a range of issues impacting on both students and the community.   They very convincingly put their new skills to good use.  They showed a real commitment to improving their public speaking and to using their talents in the classroom.

Teach for Australia

In December 2012, with a follow-up in January 2013, around 25 of the most recent TfA associates were introduced to the FD public speaking training model with a view to improving their speaking skills and confidence in advance of their arrival in classrooms.  They practised and honed their new learning in an invigorating and fascinating debate about the effects of standardised testing on students and the quality of education.  Even after 24 speakers the debate raged!

The training also encouraged and prepared them to use debating as a learning tool in the classroom, to encourage analytical thinking, clear expression and argument presentation.  Some of the associates were also keen to learn how to prepare students for competitive debating, with a view to introducing debating to their schools.

We wish the associates all the best for the teaching year.