TeachersTopic

TeachersTopic is a periodical feature about a subject of interest to the teaching community written by a prominent expert in the field. This month, Professor Elynne Chaplik-Aleskow answers questions about teaching communication to students. As a professor of speech communication, she has written numerous articles about her field in publications including The Chicago Sun-Times and the Blog Herald. Ms. Chaplik-Aleskow has also been named Chicago’s Outstanding Woman in Communication by Chicago’s YWCA. You can visit her website at: http://lookaroundme.blogspot.com.

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Teaching Communication

Answers by Professor Elynne Chaplik-Aleskow

You have taught at the high school and college level. How have these experiences differed and how have they been similar?

Teaching is one of my great passions. I began my career as a high school English teacher at Mather High School in Chicago. I am now a Professor of Speech Communication at Wright College in Chicago.

At the public urban community college where I teach, many of my students are college freshmen who were high school seniors just months before. Students are expected to be independent and mature in course assignments and classroom decorum.

High school students have always been my favorite age group. Their search for self and their need for expression have been exciting challenges for me as a teacher. In teaching college students, I balance this mission of self-discovery with the standards of the workplace and the expectations of the professional world.

Why is it important for students to study public speaking?

The study of public speaking is an experience that results in the creation of a public/professional self, more confidence and poise, and personal pride. Students should begin the process of oral presentation as early as possible in their education. No student is too young. “Show and Tell” is the beginning of the experience before an audience. The educational curriculum of each grade level should involve public speaking. Every subject should require students to present or explain a project or assignment to the class.

The earlier students begin this experience, the less traumatic it will be for them. A poll was taken of the American public asking people to identify their major fears. In the results, death was #2 and public speaking was #1. People feared public speaking over death!

Many of my colleagues dread having to lecture in front of a class. It is not only our students who feel this fear of speaking before an audience.

Today’s students at all levels of education use technology to communicate. E-mailing and text messaging are now communication norms. How many students, however, can stand before a group of people and present themselves and their thoughts in an articulate and poised manner? How many students use eye contact when communicating?

Some public speaking skills are called “life survival skills.” What are they and why have they earned this title?

Life Survival Skills is a term I use for the skills I teach. I have designed Speech 101 as a combination Public Speaking and Life Survival Skills course. Once one has faced and dealt with fear—such as the fear of public speaking—and survived, one can face almost anything in life. Once my students have learned and developed strong performance skills, they can use them in their personal and professional lives to generate and fulfill their hopes and achieve their goals. It is a journey my students and I take together.

My experience with industry and my commitment to academic standards of excellence are teaching strengths that I bring to the classroom. I am especially interested in creating a balance between the academic expectations that the college has of its students and the professional expectations that business and industry will have. When my students leave me at the end of the semester, they take with them a new part of themselves, a part many of them have discovered for the first time in my course.

In designing my course as a life survival skills experience, I begin by asking students to write a self-inventory telling me about themselves and what they need and want from a communication course. I ask that if I could custom design this course to meet their personal needs, what would they want from the course and from me. Their responses have been varied and often moving. At the end of the semester, I return their self-inventories and ask them to do another. However, this time the self-inventory will be shared orally with the class as we sit in a circle facing one another. I ask each student to compare the feelings and thoughts that were expressed in the earlier self-inventory with more current ones—especially in regard to the development of their public speaking skills, their interpersonal skills, and their relationships in the workplace. Then, after each student shares his or her insights, we move around the circle with class members sharing their thoughts and observations about how that particular student has grown and developed over the semester.

The students’ability to critique is obvious and never better than in this session. They are insightful and caring in their delivery. This is one of my favorite moments in the course. I am part of the circle as facilitator only. This is their time and they usually touch every communication standard I taught and hoped they would learn.

My work with students focuses on seeing and hearing positive changes and significant growth in their self-esteem, poise, and public/professional selves. The skills they develop, such as eye contact, voice projection, poise, and correct use of gestures, will not only get them through public speaking experiences, but also will help them in their personal and professional lives to demonstrate the best of themselves.

How has the study of public speaking evolved over the years?

The Speech course I teach not only includes public speaking but also focuses on intrapersonal and interpersonal communication. This course goes far beyond forensic ability. This course is about the study of human communication and the growth and insight of self. This is referred to as a hybrid speech course.

The evolution of public speaking as a discipline over the years has included this significant and, in my view, critical change from a study of just speaking ability to the inclusion of communication within the context of work, home and relationships. It is this practical study and application of the human condition that makes this course an experience all students, perhaps all humans, should have.

Vocal pauses give some speech coaches, well…pause. How important is it to teach students to avoid these fillers?

The other day one of my English colleagues commented that in her classes she could identify those students who had taken Public Speaking. She noticed that these students were more verbal in not being afraid to answer a question, had better eye contact, projected their voices in doing a presentation and created more organized oral reports. I asked her about these students’ use of vocal pauses such as “like,” “ah” and “um.” She answered that she did not notice and after all she teaches English not Speech. I could hear my colleagues from other disciplines saying the same thing: “I teach Math, Biology, Art, Music and on and on. Why should I care about vocal pauses or eye contact or volume?”

In order for our students to develop their professional public selves, they must become adept at these skills. To do this they must practice in whatever setting they find themselves. Classrooms filled with classmates and teachers are ideal for the repetition needed to implement these human communication skills. Their teachers must make this expectation clear no matter what the subject of the class.

Teachers should consistently ask the following of their students: "Look at me when you speak to me"; "Look at your classmates when you speak to them"; "Project your voice away from yourself and into the room when you speak, because other students in class want to hear you too."

One of the greatest challenges teachers face is helping their students to undo the habit of using “like” between each word and breath. Where did “like” come from? How did it seep into our language? “Like” is the cousin to “um” and “ah,” all vocal pauses. Silence is needed to replace these verbal thorns. Swallow the sound and be silent. That is the goal. It is not easy at first. It takes practice.

It would be a great gift my colleagues would be giving to students if they made the skills of eye contact, volume projection, and elimination of vocal pauses part of their course and subject mastery. We who teach Speech need help in offering our students practice in interpersonal communication. No matter what the subject of the course may be, teachers need only to ask their students to "look at me", to "speak so I can hear you" and to "pause silently rather than filling your language with ‘uh,’ ‘um,’ and ‘like.’"

Whether we teach at the elementary, high school or college/university level, we can do this for our students. It just takes practice, and the earlier we start, the more articulate they will become.