How to Teach Public Speaking to Kids

Public speaking is mostly two things: managed nerves and rehearsed structure. Almost none of it is natural confidence, which is why children who look like naturals are usually children who have done it before.

What is reasonable to expect

Six to eight: a few sentences to a familiar group. Reading aloud something they wrote. Expect them to look at the paper the whole time, and let them.

Eight to eleven: a couple of minutes on something they know about, with notes. This is the age where a talk about their own obsession works far better than an assigned topic.

Eleven to fourteen: five minutes, structured, with an argument in it. Also the age when self-consciousness peaks, so expect a step backwards even from a child who was fine at nine.

Fourteen and up: proper preparation, handling questions, adjusting when it is not landing.

The structure that always works

Three parts, and it is worth teaching once and reusing.

Say what you are going to talk about and why anybody should care. Then three points, no more, each with one example. Then say what you said and stop.

Children over-plan the middle and neglect the ending, so the talk trails off. Rehearse the last sentence until it is automatic; a clean ending makes the whole thing feel competent.

Rehearsal is the actual technique

Not reading it through in their head. Out loud, standing, at full volume, several times, until they are not searching for the next sentence.

Most of the fear is of drying up. Rehearsal removes the thing being feared, which is more effective than any amount of reassurance about it.

Then build the audience: the wall, one parent, two people, a grandparent on a call, the class.

The physical part

Teach it as mechanics rather than confidence, because mechanics can be practised.

Breathe out longer than in before starting. Feet flat, weight even. Hold the notes, or something, because hands are the thing children do not know what to do with. Speak slower than feels right. Look at three friendly faces in different parts of the room rather than trying to look at everybody.

What not to say beforehand

"Don't be nervous." Nerves are appropriate and unavoidable, and telling a child not to have them adds failure to fear.

Better: everybody feels this, including people who are good at it, and it fades about thirty seconds in. That is true, and it gives them something to wait for.

Afterwards

Ask what they noticed before offering anything. Then name one specific thing that went well and, only if they want it, one thing to try next time.

A child who is given five improvements has learned that it went badly, whatever you said about the first one.

The aim at this age is not a polished speaker. It is a child who has discovered that the feeling is survivable and that preparation is what makes it so.