外籍教师英语演讲课总结 Monday Evening Public Speaking Elective Class Students were interviewed and selected for admission into this class. A good grasp of spoken English and a desire for excellence in presentation, as well as a commitment to hard work, were criteria for consideration. Ms. Zhang conducted the interviews. I was invited to participate in this course and asked to lecture on the content in English Public Speaking,the required textbook for the course. It became apparent that the reading assignments were too lengthy, so I began to print handouts of my PowerPoint lesson summaries for the students as supplemental material. My lessons were drawn from the course textbook, previous teaching material and personal experience. My lessons focused mainly on writing and delivering a prepared speech. It was a lot of material to cover and my classes were mostly lecture format. We chose to use delivery of a prepared speech as the midterm exam and delivery of an impromptu speech as a final exam, combining those scores, along with scores for attendance and class participation, to achieve a final grade. At midterm time, when the students stood on stage to deliver their prepared speeches, it became apparent to me that I had not allowed them enough in-class practice time. Most of them were nervous about speaking in public and it was reflected in the quality of their performances. In hindsight, I should have lectured less, trusted them to do the reading assignments on their own, and given more classroom time for students to speak on stage. Verbal feedback from the students indicated that they, too, would have liked more opportunities to deliver speeches in class. If I’m given the responsibility and privilege of teaching this class next year, I will change the teaching plan to reflect these insights. In competition, impromptu speeches are more difficult than prepared speeches. I think class time this past semester was weighted too heavily in favor of writing the prepared speech. My suggestion for teaching this class in the future is to spend less time on the prepared speeches and more time on allowing the students practice at planning and delivering impromptu speeches. A real strength of this class, in my opinion, was having a native teacher and a foreign teacher working together. We brought different strengths and different perspectives to the class, allowing the students to obtain content and feedback from different points of view. I believe this contributes to a more well-rounded educational experience for our students. I hope that the public speaking class will continue in future semesters and I look forward to working together with Ms. Zhang in teaching these classes. Susan