Solo Talk

SOLO TALK PREPARATION Remember that one third of your total mark from this course comes from your talk mark!!! The GRC expect you to give an individual talk of ‘considerable length’ and which is made up of ideas of ‘quality, relevance and distinction.’ This means you have a lot of work to do preparing your talk, and getting all that prepared material into a format you can easily use.

Preparation And Planning Choose a topic about which you are confident Know your purpose Know your audience Do research Make notes about your topic

Rules of Solo Talk

NOW WHAT??? Once you have decided what you are going to talk about you need to consider the following aspects in order to make your talk effective.

Introduction Because the main purpose of this talk is to give information, that information must be given in a STRAIGHTFORWARD and LOGICAL way. Your introduction should introduce the TOPIC you are going to talk about and perhaps say what areas of this you will be including in your talk. You need to know where your talk is going.

GOOD OPENINGS!!! One that hooks the listener One that creates an impact on your audience, interests them TRY to avoid ‘I am going to talk about….’ Or ‘My solo talk will be about…’

The main body of your talk. It is a good idea to cluster related information before you write your talk. This means that all similar ideas/topics should be in the same paragraph/card. Once you have clustered the information you need to decide which information is the most important and decide on a logical sequence for your talk.

Clustering ideas You must now decide what idea you want to talk about first. It may be someone’s family, where and when they were born, his education, how he started his career? It may be what age you started your hobby/sport. It might be a definition of the subject. Or it may be that you want to talk about a topic such as a volcano. You should look at the first idea in connection with volcanoes. ie how a volcano is caused.

VARYING VOCABULARY Vary the lengths and types of sentences you use. Avoid repetition, try not to stutter, use pause fillers (let me think, let me explain this in more depth etc.)

USE HUMOUR AND ANECDOTE This is the best way to win over an audience Make them laugh Use an anecdote – An amusing story, often one we tell about, or even against, ourselves.

USE EXAGGERATION You can make a story more interesting than it actually was to impress your audience.

USE RHETORICAL QUESTIONS Using a rhetorical question is an effective way of engaging your audience, getting them to think about what you are talking about. Ask the audience questions, they will know not to answer.

Use Emotive Language Emotive words are strong words that reveal your interest or passion about a subject. Words that rouse the listener’s emotions. When showing anger, disgust use emotive language to show that you are being negative. Egs. Disgusting, terrible, shocking, etc. Positive – Fantastic, wonderful, fabulous etc.

USING NOTES The GRC do not say anything about using notes. However they do say that you have to ‘make appropriate use of eye contact…and gesture’, and the way you handle your notes affect these. Your notes are there to support you if you need them. You should never read your talk out – this is not what you are being marked on. The best way to avoid this is to keep your notes as short as possible, so that you can’t just read.

USING PROPS It can be a very good idea to use props in your talk. For instance if you are talking about a sport you play, you could bring in the clothing or equipment. Use a PowerPoint if you want.

Finishing Your Talk You must make sure that you finish your talk properly too. Use one of the following to end your talk. Thank you very much for listening to my talk… OR I hope you all enjoyed my talk… OR That is the end of my talk does anyone have any questions for me?

Working on your presentation You will need to do some research on your chosen topic. You can do this by doing the following: Going to the library in school or in your neighbourhood. Going on line and doing some research on the web. Asking teachers or your family who may have information on your chosen subject. You may also write to organisations who may send you information or leaflets to help you.

DO and DON’TS In each of your Individual Talks: Don’t read out a talk you have written. This is counted as reading and not talking Don’t memorise your whole talk. Again, this is counted as a form of reading.

DO and DON’TS Use Notes (prompt cards) to help you to deliver your Talk Do relax and enjoy your Talk. Remember you know more about your Talk than anyone else. Be confident. Do use visual aids to make your Talk come alive. For example, if you are talking about a holiday, show some photographs. If you are talking about a competition, bring the medal you won. If you are giving a talk about motorbikes, use a computer to show a diagram of an engine etc.