Communication Skills

Developing your communication skills

Our club gives you the opportunity to learn and practice a wide range of communication skills, including:

persuading with power
inspiring your audience
choosing your words
presenting your research
making the best use of visual aids
using your voice to best convey your ideas
mastering body language

Prepared speeches

The Competent Toastmaster Program offers you 10 speech projects, each one designed to improve one of the specific skills mentioned above. You’ll learn to speak with confidence, clarity, persuasiveness and enthusiasm.

An evaluator will give you feedback on every speech you present, poiting out your strengths and offering suggestions for improvement. Eventually, as you gain experience, you will evaluate speeches of others.

The topics covered in the program are:
1. The ice breaker
2. Organize your speech
3. Get to the point
4. How to say it
5. Your body speaks
6. Vocal variety
7. Research your topic
8. Get comfortable with visual aids
9. Persuade with power
10. Inspire your audience

Once you have completed all 10 speech projects in the manual, you are eligible for the Competent Communicator award.

You may also choose to complete the advanced programm, which focuses partly on career-related presentations, such as public relations and technical speeches. You choose the manual to complete and the skills you want to learn.

Impromptu speaking

The ability to “think and speak” simultaneously is an important skill that will help you to be successfull. That’s why the “Table topic” part of our meetings was developed: the Table Topic master announces a topic and asked members to give an impromptu talk on the matter. This gives you the opportunity to practice thinking and speaking quickly. You learn to present your thoughts in a clear and organized manner, with a minimum of preparation.

Competitive speaking

You may wish to participate in our speech contests, at club, area or district level, going right up to international level.