8 WAYS TO HELP YOUR STUDENTS GET CONFIDENT WITH PUBLIC SPEAKING

YOU MIGHT BE SURPRISED BY HOW MUCH GOOD PUBLIC SPEAKING TRAINING ISN’T ABOUT PUBLIC SPEAKING

Students’ public speaking skills can be a source of frustration in HE. You may have already provided some workshops or tips for students but it hasn’t made the impact you want.

You may be struggling with the reality that perfectly capable students:

Which can mean that SU engagement stays low and the same old extroverts are the ones who are seen.

The SLI is regularly asked to provide public speaking training for student reps, society leaders and officers. It is essential that young leaders are able to get their message across in front of their stakeholders if they are going to be effective.

This blog outlines some of the challenges that your students are facing when it comes to public speaking so that you can effectively implement 8 strategies for helping them gain more confidence – and ultimately get a broader range of student leaders in your volunteer pool.

4 REASONS STUDENTS STRUGGLE WITH PUBLIC SPEAKING

Giving presentations has never been the top of people’s fun activity list – but it’s interesting and understandable to see how much more challenging public speaking has become for students over the last few years.

  1. Rises in student anxiety

Even forgetting about public speaking, we have seen rises in anxiety in student populations over the last few years. Anxiety, in the clinical sense, is a feeling of panic, stress or fear that negatively affects your ability to do everyday activities. This means your students are more likely to feel overwhelmed, have less energy and be scanning situations for the worst possible outcome.

A report by the Office for National Statistics on higher education students’ wellbeing found that over a two week period, 39% of the first year students surveyed reported that they thought they had an anxiety disorder.

Rates of anxiety and depression in students increased after the pandemic and don’t seem to have come down significantly despite being back to ‘business as usual’. This may be due to a range of confounding factors:

Public speaking is already an activity that triggers worry and self-consciousness for many students. When you consider that they are already anxious, is it any wonder they find it hard to engage with public speaking development?

  1. Public speaking in high stakes environments

When do young people most need their public speaking skills?

In each of these cases the stakes are high. Getting it wrong or being outshone by someone else closes the proverbial door of opportunity in your student’s face. This perceived pressure can increase the fear of the actual event as well as create a lot of discomfort in the run up to it. The conundrum is that when your students find an activity unpleasant then they may be tempted to avoid it altogether… which means even less practice.

  1. The rise of social comparison

Whether we like it or not, social media has changed the culture of society forever – especially so for younger people who have grown up with it. Whilst social media has the power to connect us, facilitate learning and create social movements – it also gives us unrealistic standards to compare ourselves to, opens everyone up to judgement and criticism and can create a bias towards only working on or ‘publishing’ our successes.

Public speaking is always a work in progress. It takes time and effort to develop the technical skills of a good presentation and even longer to develop the confidence to go with it. If your students feel like they are on show, at risk of being trolled or are anything but #flawless than it can be easier to hide away from it.

  1. Why do students fear public speaking? – A lack of psychological safety

All of these challenges have one common thread. A lack of psychological safety. Making a large presentation to an audience

Psychological safety is a term often used to talk about organisational culture and team performance: “The belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes, and that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking” (Edmondson, 1999)

When psychological safety is lacking, people avoid vulnerability, hide mistakes, fabricate results, compete unnecessarily and engage in dysfunctional behaviours that allow them to protect the self.

If we translate this to your students, a lack of psychological safety means:

It’s no wonder there’s been a decline in public speaking confidence.

HOW TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ PUBLIC SPEAKING SKILLS

As a training provider its easy to reel off the kinds of skills which make a difference to students public speaking abilities;

The list goes on.

But that’s not your starting point.

Telling students the tools and models for excellent public speaking is no good without actual practice… and inviting students to practice when they are in ‘survival mode’ is a recipe for a stalemate (you know, when the students shrug their shoulders, stay seated and then sneak off at the first opportunity).

You start with the psychological safety.

8 WAYS TO BUILD PSYCHOLOGICALLY SAFE PUBLIC SPEAKING TRAINING

Here are the core ingredients you need for public speaking training that will engage students effectively:

  1. Market the session realistically. Public speaking sessions which hype up the offer (you’ll command the room, present like a boss) will switch off the students who are further behind in their confidence – exactly the people you most want to engage with you.
  2. Name the challenges. Many of your students feel anxious, self-conscious, overwhelmed… So say it. Naming those feelings out loud diffuses tension and lets your students know that you understand where they are coming from. Empathy is powerful.
  3. Start with confidence building. SLI sessions never jump straight into public speaking tools even though ‘that’s what it says on the tin’. Your students need time to ease in, build rapport with the trainer and understand how they can grow their confidence over time (yes there are models!) Doing this work first makes the actual public speaking content easier to digest.
  4. Make everything voluntary. Students die in their seats when the trainer picks on them and says ‘You’re up first’. Yes we want them to practice, but putting nervous people on the spot and making them do a demo, give feedback or even introduce themselves can tip them into survival mode. Keep things friendly by inviting your students to join in at whatever pace they are ready.
  5. Small groups. Not everyone is ready to speak in front of 20 people at once. Break off into groups so that people are only presenting to 2-4 people at a time. Once they grow in confidence you can create bigger groups. (It also allows more people to practice at the same time).
  6. Practice. Practice. Part of the reason public speaking is scary is that we don’t do it often – and when we do, it’s usually for something important. If we did speeches every day, we would be so used to them that they might even feel boring. I tell students this and encourage them to keep practicing over and over to build up their tolerance of public speaking.
  7. Model supportive feedback. Your students are already feeling self-conscious about their public speaking skills so it’s important that the feedback they receive is framed in a way that celebrates the good and identifies one or two constructive next steps. We don’t want any accidental trolling to cut someone’s confidence (Not too bad, I thought X was a bit clunky). Make sure you show your group how to give specific, positive feedback that helps to nourish people.
  8. Encourage constructive self-reflection. If your students lack confidence then there’s a good chance that they are the first person to criticise themselves or compare themselves to someone who is 100x better. This keeps them in a low confidence rut. Encourage students to make comparisons with themselves. How are their feelings and / or performance different at the start of the training compared to the end? This isn’t about being a finished product but about noticing and celebrating their progress along the way. Self-reflection is a great tool for helping people acknowledge what is going well, what comes next and working out what tools, activities or support makes the biggest difference to them so that they can continue on their development journey.

THE BENEFITS OF HELPING YOUR STUDENTS WITH PUBLIC SPEAKING

When students are effective public speakers it can reopen those proverbial doors:

Whilst it’s not strictly the job of student unions to build this skill set, you can see how it is a beneficial area for investment. The benefits outlined above add value to the student experience and help to create a confident and effective workforce at the end of the HE journey.

Confidence in public speaking skills may also improve SU engagement:

So, although public speaking skills can be a minefield of insecurities and challenges for you and your students to overcome – there are most definitely tried and tested strategies you can put in place to help your students build their confidence. By building the right environment, naming the challenges, giving supportive feedback and practising in small steps you can build the psychological safety your students need to succeed.

If you’re already spinning too many plates and feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of delivering YET ANOTHER public speaking training, The Self Leadership Initiative can help. Book a training consult to start planning your bespoke public speaking training today. 

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