violence on stage

Concerned viewers demand that television and movies should censor the amount and nature of violence they feature as it greatly affects or influence the minds of young viewers. Acts of killing or brutally hurting others should not be served "raw" to the audience. Moviemakers are challenged to present scenes in the most realistic fashion without hurting the sensibilities of people or without distorting the facts or without showing the "act" itself,sparing the audience from seeing gory details of spilled guts and smashed skulls. Gory details of killings or massacres should be done so artistically that the scene shouldn't look like an abattoir.

However, who censors what students present on stage? Teachers of course should be the first ones to check that student presentations onstage should not break the above rule regarding violence. Otherwise, the school will become another breeding ground for hardened and violence-tolerant individuals. When outside trainers are hired to train students in their stage presentations, the teacher usually adopts a hands-up attitude, entrusting the whole thing to the hired trainer who, at times, does not have an eye for such concern. Result? The whole student population watches an array of killings, as in a character stabbing with a knife another character right before the very eyes of student audiences. A depiction of war among gun-bearing characters on stage becomes a common sight. Rape on stage, physical fights which involve kicking, pushing, boxing, slapping are all commonly shown on stage as part of student presentations. Of course we know that some of these happen in real life but shouldn't there be a more creative way of presenting these horrid details without presenting them in an exaggerated fashion or in a way that gives more emphasis on the violence of the situation?

I think educators should teach students how to think creatively, how to transform the raw facts of life into an art form in their stage presentations. There is no real art in presenting life as it is. Education should include the teaching and learning to recognize values in what students present in the classroom or onstage.

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on bookish teachers..

Teachers who are slaves to their textbooks fail to bring in real-world lessons into the classroom and are thus seldom effective. Every word they say and every example they give is from the book. They cannot live without the book as their only source of information. This habit is not really bad but students only get to see one side of the lesson. A good teacher should be able to use book information as springboard for real discussion in the classroom. A good teacher should be able to merge theory with her own experience outside of the book. Even in subjects like Math. In teaching the intricacies of formulas, the teacher should be able to connect the lessons with the students' lives. How and where can they use these complex formulations?

Always remember that books had been written by people too, some in fact by new writers who had been teachers themselves but this does not make them the sole authority on the subject. You can use their work as reference but never as the Word of God in the classroom. A good teacher does her best to have more than one reference book on any subject. She gets the ideas and opinions of as many authors or writers, say, 3 to 6 books.

Any teacher with a good many years of experience can author a book on his subject. His wide classroom experience could offer valuable information to new teachers. With a dash of information from other authors to back his own, he will be able to come up with a book that not only teaches theory but also provides practice for students.

can sing, but can't speak...

Huh? How can these kids sing beautifully and not know how to answer simple questions properly? The same is true with some old people. They go up the stage to give a song number and when asked to answer a simple question in English, they could not answer it.

Are people now giving more importance to singing than to speaking? Will people admire a singer if he could not even explain his music or say anything about himself? I don't know what you think, but if you ask me, I just think any talent is useless if you could not "sell" it well. You have a product, then be ready to sell it and when we say "sell it" we mean talk about it or explain it using words or language.

No real singer succeeds if he does not know how to promote himself or his music. So I think it is not right to just focus on a single talent. What I mean is, if you have a talent, okay, polish it but along with perfecting it, you should also learn basic communication skills for you to be able to promote yourself and your product.

the difficulty of training old teachers

The saying, "It is hard to teach old dogs new tricks" can be said of teachers who had been in the trade for a number of years. They are the most difficult to train for they have already gotten used to their old ways that oftentimes the government or any sponsoring school is only wasting a lot of its time and money teaching these "hard-to-teach" mentors.

For one, their time. Training them long term, say one semester, eats up a lot of their precious free time. What happens is you have a case of always absent teachers.

Second, teachers are no better than their students. They too are afraid of being called to do a task in front of the class. They too come in unprepared, very late, or absent for that activity.

Now if this is the kind of teachers a school has, I pity the students who are under their tutelage. Obviously, such teachers are exhibiting a "hard to train attitude" and so the students are left with no choice but to learn from these teachers with their "old bag of tricks".

It is sad that even our very own mentors cannot even be properly trained because of their own personal resistance to be trained.

Oh, well, it's their life.

more theory or more practice?

One English teacher has this dilemma on whether to teach her students more theory or give them more practice on the language.

I know that some teachers still follow the traditional approach of monopolizing class time with their talk or lectures. Not any more.

Today, modern-day language teachers only spend 10% of class time in presenting a lesson and giving feedback to her students. The rest of the time is spent in making the students use the language in various situations.

Usage is more important than theory. Knowledge of theory does not necessarily lead to effective communication. A good language teacher should spend more time in creating opportunities for her students to use the language in different situations.

speech without humor

Listening to a speech without humor is like eating food without any flavor. After one bite, that's it, you don't want anymore of it.

So what constitutes humor? How does one inject humor into his speech? Is humor just a matter of telling a joke related to the topic?Someone who wants to establish a career in public speaking expressed his concern over his inability to deliver a joke well. I mean, he feels very bad when the audience does not seem to get the joke. This happens to many speakers that when a joke or supposed to be the humorous part of the speech does not turn out as expected, it affects their entire presentation----which should not be the case.

When the audience just stares at you like that like they did not understand you, or maybe like they did not hear you when you expect them to react with a laugh or maybe smile a little, just move on and never let your own emotion show. The worst thing is for you to repeat the joke for them to understand it and at least laugh. No. Do not repeat it if they failed to get it the first time and do not point out the fact that it is supposed to be a joke and that they are supposed to laugh for they will surely find that pathetic.

The rule in not being able to effectively deliver a joke is this: Never force the issue. Just move on with your speech like nothing happened. Just be spontaneous and cool.

ideas, content, subject

Reading regularly increases or builds your wealth of ideas which are the very stuff that your speech will be made of. Trust me, people who read regularly will have less to worry when it comes to making a speech with or without preparation. Words and ideas will just tumble out of her mouth efforlessly, flawlessly while those who never read nor do research will be at a loss for words and will need to grapple for ideas that do not come.

One can't hide the presence or absence of ideas especially in making a speech. It will always have a way of showing itself in the blunders made, long gaps or dead air, and in stuttering. Beautiful words delivered in perfect diction and good voice can never hide the emptiness of a speech. A speech without substance or content falls flat or hollow. It does not deliver nor persuade nor convince. It just falls flat.

Content, content, content-----what we're looking for in a speech, the meat, the substance, the what. Without it, it's just sounds, a voice, and words. A speech is meaningless without meat.