I am a teacher. How can I instill confidence in my students to speak in front of an audience?
Baby steps. The answer to life is baby steps.
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I would say baby steps.
I think a major part of the shock in speaking in front of audiences is the "all eyes on you" aspect.
When I was in school, I used to be the guy that would dread every moment leading up to the point I would need to speak in front of an audience or class. I'd get cold sweats because I was so nervous.
But from 2010-2014, I've spoke at multiple conferences with 200+ people and was featured on 3 podcasts.
My first step in learning to be comfortable in front of an audience was learning to talk in front of a group of 2-3. I learned this by mentoring a couple guys a year below me in high school for about a year (by the way, my idea of "mentoring" at the time was just sharing stuff I was learning, it wasn't anything formal -- I never saw myself as "leadership potential").
I moved on up to groups of 4-5 by taking a handful of students from my old high school to lunch on a regular basis when I was in college. I did this for about a year as well.
And then I started getting invited to speak in front of small groups ranging between 10-20 (my idea of "speaking" or "teaching" was similar to my mentoring philosophy, I approached it as an opportunity to share stuff I had learned or had worked for me, maybe sharing some struggles on the way).
And then 30-40.
And then 50-80.
And then after that point it sort of became a blur. Every transition was a smooth transition that I hardly noticed. Once I got comfortable with one stage, taking the next step wasn't too scary, intimidating, or far-reaching.
Because I was speaking a lot more (and blogging as well) I had more and more refined explanations and became more eloquent in my sharing, but I still never really regarded myself as a teacher/speaker (they were intimidating titles to me at the time).
Baby steps!
In terms of actual strategies, perhaps have your students try sharing for 2 minutes with a partner of their choice that they are familiar with. And then move on to a partner they don't know very well (but keep it a familiar topic).
From there, move on to an unfamiliar topic (perhaps a prompt of your choosing). Do that a few times and then have them share in groups of 3.
Do it a few times and then do groups of 4-5. And then so on and so forth until you're having them speak to 1/4 of the classroom or 1/3. Then from there, hopefully speaking in front of the whole class won't be such a foreign and intimidating concept.
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