- By Duke Ekezie Joseph (UNICAL DEBATE CLUB)
In many parts of the world particularly in Africa where I come from, Public Speaking is considered an extracurricular activity, which is given little or no attention by majority of people. The best defence these people have is that “I DON’T NEED IT”, and this perception is conceived mostly by students or people who pursue an academic or professional career in the Science field.
As an activity, Public Speaking does not restrict itself to the conventional Individual and Audience talk, but it transcends into the art of conveying ideas and opinions to a person, or a group of persons(no matter how little the numbers are) in the exact way as how you think/thought about it. To be clear, as an environmentalist that feels Climate change is definitely going to affect the world negatively, and it is a pressing issue which political leaders should look into solving, you need people (political leaders, policy influencers and even the masses) to see reasons with you. You need to be able to effectively communicate that idea or information of yours in the exact way you feel about it, for perfect understanding.
It is perplexing to think about the prolonged process students pass through while learning how to communicate their ideas and thoughts to a wider audience using the tools of essays, articles and poems. It is also indeed baffling that schools appreciate the essence of Literature In English as a course to be taught in secondary schools, but feel public speaking is only less important. If students can be given so much opportunities to express themselves in written form, why are there less opportunities for these same students to be able to express their views and opinions through spoken words?
Over the years, the topic of discussion has been on if Students and professionals (especially those of scientific backgrounds) are really in need of public speaking? The ability to persuade people to understand and believe in an idea or substance lies in the hands of effective communication, and public speaking. Not only politicians need these skills of persuasiveness and communication to actively convince the electorate to vote for them in the polls, As an entrepreneur, you need to attract people to your product or your business. For people to invest resources or time into that business or commodity, they need to be persuaded and convinced without reasonable doubt that truly such an investment would be worth it.
Indeed, it is slavery not to be able to effectively communicate one’s thoughts and ideas to an audience. The fact that we feel terrible or excited over certain issues, and we can’t communicate those ideas openly is a big problem to be bothered about. Because, we need to use public speaking as a medium to communicate our ideas to the larger society, and contribute our voices to National and Global development. Not just Obama or Clinton needs Public Speaking to win an election, but WE ALL NEED PUBLIC SPEAKING!
Good job Duke