Workshop: Public Speaking

The goal of the workshop is to transform students from passive (and unaware) consumers of language into professionals aware of the word, capable of adapting their register and communicative intent to different professional scenarios through a mix of information and practical exercises. These are skills that can be applied to journalism, public relations, or political and commercial communication.

To achieve this, the workshop will develop two main themes:
- Understanding how to prepare for a public speech
- Working on listening

Understanding how to prepare for a public speech
Preparing for a public speech means building a communicative identity for the time of the speech. Effective preparation is a process that begins with the mind and ends with the voice, through body language. Understanding how to address an audience at a conference or present a paper to a group of colleagues. But also how to behave during an interview or a radio or television appearance, or more simply, how to structure one's presentation during exams or job interviews.
- Preparation is the essential prerequisite: Student group work serves to transform a text into a living experience. The group will act as a critical mirror and a directing laboratory to hone your craft.
- How to make your speech resonate effectively: eye contact, posture, breathing. Your body must confirm what your voice says. If your body is stiff, the speaker will perceive insecurity, regardless of the content.
- How to capture and maintain attention: the listener's attention is not a static resource, which is why it is necessary to create continuous "refreshments" that prevent the listeners' brains from entering energy-saving mode.

Work on listening
- Comprehension Through practical exercises and group tests, to develop understanding of nonverbal language and how the speaker's choice of words can influence our reactions.
- Developing paralinguistic awareness, recognizing that as much as 40% of the concepts we express are communicated through vocal connotations, volume, rhythm, pauses, intensity, gaze, and posture: it's important to pay attention to how we say things, as well as what we say.
Each session includes a group discussion on how difficult (or natural) it is to manipulate verbal language and how these skills apply to journalism, public relations, or political and commercial communication.

By providing the basics and simultaneously practicing, at the end of the workshop, students are expected to have achieved a level of knowledge and confidence with public speaking such as to be able to give a speech in public or relate to meetings, presentations, or exams.