Challenge Of The Motor Mouths

Week Six of the ARMS programme began with a brief review of what the students have gained from the sessions so far. What stood out for them included the personal branding, inner child, personal greeting, the emotional bank account and perception vs. reality.

This week’s session was based on the Power of Communication. The word communication was defined and broken down into smaller components. The transactional analysis in communication was also reviewed whereby all shared their encounters of interactions where they were in situations where they were addressed as a child, colleague or adult.

The highlight of the class was definitely the Public Speaking Challenge. The group was separated into two teams and were tasked with preparing impromptu speeches which would be timed and checked for grammar and other errors. The students were also briefed on the basic structure of speeches, being the introduction, body and conclusion.

All individuals were faced with delivering short 30 second speeches to the class and were awarded points for their presentations in terms of keeping to the time limit, content and structure of the speech. The teams were tie at the end of the competition which brought about the final face-off! Tshepo Madibo (A.K.A China) and Kgotso Maphike (A.K.A Fresh) went head-to-head for the title.

The two were very close, but Fresh was then awarded less points for his lengthy, but very inspirational piece. Tshepo walked away the victor, making his team very proud! The session reminded the students that the fundamental purpose of any speech was to firstly take people on a journey and not have a scatter-brained output. The audience would surely be inspired by this approach!