Public speaking or speech giving is a life skill that children will find valuable in all walks of life. While it is natural to feel nervous when speaking in public for the first time, children should feel a tremendous sense of achievement, and take lots of confidence from so doing. Indeed, many children take up the dramatic arts to build confidence in public speaking.

So this activity is to write and deliver a speech to persuade your audience to do something. It should be something that children feel passionate about.

What is a speech?

A speech is an informal or formal talk given to an audience. It allows the speaker to address a group of people to express their thoughts or opinions.  There are many types of speeches, from simple introductions, to persuading others to agree with your point of view.

In Spid the Spider Helps Save the Planet, Spid sets out to persuade others stop littering, and help clean-up and preserve our planet to benefit all that live on it. He does this by rallying others to support him.

Top tips on speech giving for children

1. Pre-planning

Delivering a great speech starts with pre-planning, then drafting and editing what you want to say. So first:

  • Know your audience, what they think, feel
  • Organise your message/what you want to say with a simple theme
  • Include the reasons why you are sending or the audience should act on your message? What are the benefits for the audience, yourself or world at large … Try and limit the number of reasons to the three strongest reasons to avoid diluting your argument.

2. Grab the audience’s attention with a snappy introduction

 Introductions set the tone for what follows; here are three types of example:

  1. Tell a personal anecdote

In Spid the Spider Helps Save the Planet, Spid starts by explaining that he found litter in his garden, and then slipped on the litter. He further goes on to explain what he read in the newspapers about the consequences of global littering including the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’. This fuels his desire to stop littering, and help clean-up and preserve our planet to benefit all that live on it.

    1. Use rhetoric to engage your audience; for example, though logical argument, emotional persuasion, or by showing your experience …. Here you can watch some examples of rhetorical persuasion from Walt Disney movies!

  1. Use impressive statistics, or famous quotes

Here’s a quote from Greta Thunberg, Swedish-eco-campaigner

“Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people, to give them hope, but I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.”

Reading other people’s speeches should also provide ideas to structure your speech. In this example, note how Greta uses repetition to make her point.

3. Keep the message simple

A strong speech will usually focus on a single idea or theme. By following or applying a single theme to everything said, adds impact, or strength to the message and helps the audience follow and understand the argument.  It’s also most effective to write as you would speak, in other words to use natural language.

4. Follow a coherent structure

A strong speech will also have a coherent structure. A beginning or introduction, a middle that develops the arguments, and an end that summaries the arguments.

In other words you:

  • tell your audience what you are going to tell them,
  • then you tell them,
  • And finally, you tell them what you told them.

5. The power of silence and speaking slowly!

A common problem with new speakers is that nervousness causes them to speak too quickly. This risks a garbled message. So, remind to speak slowly. It is fine to pause and use silence to positive effect; to underline key points (and give thinking time)!

6. Practice makes perfect!

Standing-up and giving speeches without forethought and practice requires lots of experience.

So to build up your child’s confidence, encourage them to practice giving a speech.

Firstly, by reading through their written prose to help commit the flow of words to memory, and then by preparing note cards, with the key points that they wish to make.

Then finally to practice the speech in front of a mirror or audience, and to seek feedback on their delivery.

Remember too that the audience is likely to take more heed of body language than the words themselves.

7. Key points to remember

  • Grab audience attention with a snappy opening like an anecdote or rhetorical question
  • Make sure the speech (and introduction) conveys a single message
  • Have a clear structure; a beginning, middle and end
  • Speak clearly and confidently by practicing your speech several times

For more advice on speech giving for children please also check out the wealth of online resources including Speaking Schools of Australasia and their YouTube channel.

  • Download our speech writing and giving proforma
  • Download our speech writing and giving proforma

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