Public speaking is a real art. It is the art of performing in front of the crowd, keeping the audience engaged, conveying your ideas effectively, and making an impact with your words. Due to these and many other reasons, public speaking is widely used in the academic program as a tool for helping students develop personally.
Typically, when thinking about public speaking, students tend to perceive it as something negative, close to torture. Indeed, public speaking at school is associated with tons of fears and issues. Not to mention the process of writing a speech, which most often gives students a headache.
Yet, the truth is that there are much more benefits than disadvantages of public speaking. As a student, you can even find a reliable writing service and ask, “please, make an essay for me,” and order a ready-made text for your speech. But, the personal benefits you will get from performing in front of the audience go much deeper.
So, why is it so important for students to develop public speaking skills? Let’s look at the top eight benefits to answer this question.
- It Helps Boost Personal Development
The first and most significant reason to encourage students to speak publicly is that it will help them boost their personal development. How? Public speaking helps develop a whole range of other, no less important abilities, which positively affect the speaker’s personality. Therefore, public speaking is often being identified closely with personal growth.
- It Offers Better Career Perspectives
Even though your students might still be far away from landing their first jobs, when we speak of the benefits of public speaking, we can’t avoid mentioning career advancement. Of course, public speaking is not a must-have skill for most professions. Yet, it always gives its owner a competitive advantage. Thus, by inculcating public speaking skills in your students today, you are helping them shape a better future.
- It Helps Network
In the 21st century, networking is crucial for personal and professional success. Having an extended network of contacts will definitely help students solve pretty much any problem in their lives. And public speaking can contribute to that.
When speaking at a conference or any other event, students inevitably make new connections. They can network with the audience, as well as other speakers. As a result, they get an opportunity to make new valuable connections.
- It Helps Drive Change
Today, many people are shaping more solid opinions on such big topics as politics, the environment, and others. What is more, many are now willing to raise their voices to make a change. And, we’ve seen plenty of such examples among students. If we look at famous student activists, we can notice how good they all are at public speaking. This brings us to the next reason – acquiring public speaking skills can enable students to drive change.
- It Boosts Confidence
Students, especially younger ones, have always tended to lack self-confidence. However, public speaking can help with this as well. Many teachers are encouraging their students to practice public speaking to help them overcome fears and boost confidence. And it really works! Most speakers confirm that speaking in front of the public actually helps them feel more confident in everyday life.
- It Boosts Communication Skills
If you ask anyone about the most important life and professional skills, we bet they will say that communication is definitely among them. Being able to communicate effectively with different types of people and in various situations is a skill that can help one succeed at school, work, and life in general.
Now, guess what? While acquiring public speaking skills, students also improve their communication skills.
- It Helps Learn to Persuade
Another vital skill that can help one a lot in life and work is persuasion. And it also can be developed with the help of public speaking. As a rule, every public performance has two core goals – to provide information on a certain topic and to persuade the audience of the correctness of the speakers’ ideas. Respectively, when students learn to give speeches, they automatically learn to be more persuasive.
- It Boosts a Variety of Other Vital Skills
Lastly, it is also worth noting that public speaking helps develop a whole range of other, also very important skills.
To name a few, public speaking helps strengthen critical thinking skills because when writing a speech, students are required to collect and process large amounts of information. Also, it boosts performance and leadership skills. If students engage in writing a speech on their own, it will also help them boost their writing ability, expand their vocabulary, and feel even more fluent in their language. And, finally, while preparing and giving a speech, students also learn to argue effectively and develop strong listening skills too.
In fact, the list can go on and on. But, the key idea is that by acquiring public speaking skills, an individual also acquires other vital skills that come in handy in everyday life, work, and studies.
Final Thought
These are not all the reasons why it’s important to instill public speaking skills in students. However, these are the most notable ones. All the reasons mentioned above stress the value of public speaking and the benefits it can offer. So, whether you are an educator or a student yourself, now, you should be able to recognize the perks of instilling public speaking skills and start acting!