ATISSA BANUAZIZI: when you're teaching students
to communicate orally effectively,
giving them a real living large audience
ups their game considerably.
Obviously, like, nobody wants to do
a bad job in front of their peers in front of a group.
And obviously, that's important because it replicates
the kind of talks that they're likely to be giving,
say, at conferences.
However, it may not be wise to throw them in the deep end
right away.
And a lot of times in classes that do
have an oral communication component, that's what happens.
You know, somebody isn't necessarily
an experienced speaker.
And their first experience of it is an end
of the semester presentation.
And that's very, very difficult for a lot of students.
So what I think has worked really well in this class
is giving them that practice over and over again
in a slightly safer setting, where
it's just a couple of people.
When they give the original practice oral presentation
it's not even graded, so it's safe to fail.
And that sense of safety and that sense
of really building up stage by stage your skills
is what gives them the confidence
to be skilled communicators by the end of the semester.
You know by the time they finish 8.13,
there is nobody in the class who doesn't
understand what they need to do to make their presentation
work.
You know, the moment of going into the conference
room or the classroom and standing up
in front of their peers, that makes it possible, that makes
it maybe even fun.