Macy Cothran
Professor Leeper
Comp I TR 11:00
7 October 2014
Learning to Communicate One of the many opportunities offered by the National FFA Organization is speech contests, which gives its members valuable life skills. Students gain a variety of skills from participating in these contests that help them to be successful throughout school and future careers. FFA speech contests teach students study and memorization skills, how to present themselves in front of an audience, how to think on their feet, and how to be confident in everyday situations. Preparation for these speech contests teach research and memorization skills. FFA speeches must be delivered in six to eight minutes by memory, and are followed by five minutes of questions …show more content…
Often, the room the speech is delivered in is too cool and has harsh, bright lighting. The judges, like waiting vultures, appear too severe in perfectly pressed, gray suits. Students fight to forget the sour taste on their tongues and the thundering of their hearts. The whole atmosphere of the room can be disconcerting, and it can seem almost impossible to gather the courage to shatter the oppressive silence with a single voice. The best speakers take advantage of the silence and fill the entire room with a voice that commands everyone’s attention. The speaker’s face is animated and they radiate excitement. They make others passionate about their message. I interviewed a frequent participant in FFA speech contests, Tea Elliot-Fox, who said, “It is hard work, especially if a person is shy, getting comfortable speaking alone and taking control of a room like that.” In order to be an effective public speaker, a student must learn to master trembling knees and sweating palms, capture the attention of the room, and deliver a speech that the audience enjoys. This is a skill that applies to many areas of life, including future job interviews and simple daily interactions with others. Tea Elliot-Fox told me that students learn how to be self-aware, know how they are being perceived, and how the message will be received. Also, students learn to maintain …show more content…
The five minutes of follow up questioning, as Ms. Elliot-Fox told me, is one of the more challenging aspects of the speech contest. Students must wait, standing alone at the front of the room with only the sound of softly rustling papers pervading the quiet, for the judges to prepare themselves. Questions must be answered immediately and confidently. Answers are timed and it is imperative that the student appear knowledgeable about the topic. Students have to be able to give the judges the requested information in a timely manner, and do so accurately. This can be quite difficult when the speaker’s hands are breaking out into a nervous sweat and that rough, corduroy jacket suddenly feels very restricting, but being able to think quickly is a very useful skill to possess. The student, after gaining this ability, will feel more confident in everyday