Teaching of Eight-minutes Speech Contests to Improve Communication Skills

Abstract

Hitachi Technical College has the curriculum includes eight-minutes speech contests to improve communication skills. Contests are held every month. Students choose to talk about their experience or beliefs. Two students are awarded a prize for excellence, and the overall winner advances to the finals. This is how I taught the skills for the speech contests to students in my class. Out of ten contests, ten students from my class took prizes for excellence, which is half of all prizes awarded for excellence, and five winners advance to the finals. Teaching communication skills produces positive results for students; they learn about the structure of speeches, how to construct their own logical speech, and it helps them to improve their public-speaking abilities.