SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES & LAW

DEPARTMENT OF GENERAL STUDIES & BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCES

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE DEGREE PROGRAMMES

COURSE OUTLINE (Effective Summer 2019)

Lecturer:

_______________________

COURSE TITLE: PUBLIC SPEAKING Semester:

COURSE CODE: ENG111
_______________________
YEAR/SEMESTER: 2/1
CREDITS/DURATION: 3/1 SEMESTER Contact details:

TOTAL HOURS: 45 _______________________

PRE-REQUISITE: ENG109 ACADEMIC WRITING 1
_______________________

RATIONALE
Professionals and persons employed in certain jobs are expected to be able to speak in public or
make professional oral presentations in a formal context, which often necessitates the use of
English. Such exposure is necessary in order for them to deliver themselves confidently and
competently in their daily professional lives. This course is designed to give students advanced
communication skills which will enable them to present well-researched speeches, and to
develop the art of speaking in public.

COURSE DESCRIPTION
The course is designed to integrate theory and practice in preparing professionals for public
speaking assignments. Participants will be provided with the opportunity to develop skills in the
preparation and delivery of speeches for specific types of professional occasions.

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GENERAL OBJECTIVES

Participants should achieve the following:

 Demonstrate the requirements for effective public speaking

 Recognise the factors involved in listening to a speech
 Be sensitive to the inter-relatedness of speaking and active listening
 Demonstrate how to analyze and adapt style, materials and mode to an audience or
occasion
 Demonstrate effective planning and presenting of specific speeches
 Display confidence in professional public speaking

COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

On successful completion of this course students should be able to:

1. Discuss the relationship between public speaking and audience response
2. Discuss the role of the speaker in eliciting active listening
3. Apply skills in speech preparation and delivery to enhance listening
4. Assess personal “speech anxiety” and use appropriate reduction techniques
5. Conduct both an informal and formal audience analysis
6. Discuss how speaking skills, materials, mode of delivery affect audience response
7. Plan a speech to appeal to a specific type audience
8. Generate material for the body of a speech
9. Plan an appropriate, interesting introduction
10. Plan an appropriate conclusion using purposeful specific strategies
11. Integrate visual aids into a presentation
12. Evaluate personal and class presentations
13. Prepare and deliver ceremonial speeches
14. Prepare and deliver and informative speech
15. Prepare and deliver a promotional speech

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SUMMARY OF COURSE CONTENT

Unit 1 Speaking & Listening 9 hours

Unit 2 Speech Planning 6 hours
Unit 3 Developing the Speech 10 hours
Unit 4 Presenting the Speech 12 hours
Unit 5 Adapting to Special Occasions 8 hours
Total 45 Hours

COURSE CONTENT

Unit 1 SPEAKING AND LISTENING 9 hours

CONTENT:

 Public Speaking vs. Conversation

 Basic Principles and skills for effective public speaking
 Listening Skills
 The inter-relatedness of speaking and listening
 Ethics and Public Speaking
 The importance of Non-Verbal Communication to the speech process
 Psychological Preparation
 The constraints
 Speech Anxiety
 Techniques for reduction
 Assessing individual strengths and weaknesses

Unit 2 Speech Planning 6 hours

CONTENT

 Selecting a Topic and Purpose

 Demographic and Situational Audience Analysis
 Adapting to constraints
 Generating Speech Materials

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  Library and Internet Research
 Interviewing
 Supporting main Ideas
 Critical selection of supporting materials
 Examples, Data, Testimony and Anecdotes

Unit 3 Developing the Speech 10 hours

CONTENT

 Principles of Organization and Purpose

o Speeches to inform vs. speeches to entertain vs Speeches to persuade
 Body
o Main Ideas and Purpose, Patterns
o Supporting Materials
o Making transitions, using connectives
 Introduction
o Critical selection to stimulate audience attention and lead to body
 Conclusion
o Using specific techniques to bring closure (eg. Summary, climax, comparison)
 Preparing an Outline

Unit 4 Presenting the Speech 12 hours

CONTENT:

 Principles and Modes of Delivery

 Platform appearance and etiquette
 Language usage
o Pronunciation, articulation
 Voice
o Modulation

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  Pace
 Body Language
 Eye contact, gestures, stance, movement
 Cyclical Inter-relationships
 Guidelines to Using Visual Aids

Unit 5 Adapting to Special Occasions 8 hours

CONTENT:
 Guidelines for Speaking to Inform
 Guidelines for Speaking to Promote
 Speeches of Introduction, Presentation, Acceptance
 Commemorative Speeches

TEACHING STRATEGIES
Lecture/Discussion
Exercises for enhancing individual skills
Preparing and using an assessment instrument
Individual and group assessment of speeches
Presenting a critical report on a special occasion speech
Handouts

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ASSESSMENT MATRIX

Informative
Impromptu

Ceremonial
Persuasive

TOTAL
Speech

Speech

Speech
speech
No. Course Learning Outcome (CLO’s)

1 2 4 6 10 22
Understand and demonstrate the
requirements for effective public
speaking in different contexts

2 2 6 9 10 27
Understand and demonstrate how to
analyze and adapt style, materials and
mode to an audience or occasion

3 Demonstrate effective planning and 3 6 9 10 28

presenting of specific speeches

4 Demonstrate confidence in professional 3 4 6 10 23

public speaking and proficiency in various
modes of delivery

10 20 30 40 100
Total

ASSESSMENT

A student MUST register a pass in the EOM and when added to the coursework grade, must have
an overall passing grade to be successful in the course. The student MUST do all pieces of
course work. Please note that this course has a weighting of 40% for the EOM and 60% for
coursework. Each student's final grade for the course will be computed using the following
weighted scheme:

Impromptu Speech 10%

Informative Speech 20%
Persuasive Speech (Extemporaneous) 30%
Final Presentation-Group (Special Occasion Speech) 40%
Total 100%

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LEARNING RESOURCES

Books, magazines, periodicals, handouts

REQUIRED TEXTS

Lucas, S.E (2014). The Art of Public Speaking,11th Edition. McGraw Hill: Boston,
Massachusetts.

RECOMMENDED READINGS

Beebe, S. and Beebe, S (2012) Public Speaking An Audience-Centered Approach, 8th Edition.
Allyn & Bacon, Boston, Massachusetts.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY AND COPYRIGHT

UCC demands a high level of scholarly behavior and academic honesty on the part of its
students. Any assignment, test paper, project, or report submitted by you and that bears your
name will be assumed to be your own original work that has not been previously submitted for
credit in another course unless you obtain prior written permission to do so from your lecturer. In
all assignments, or drafts of paper, you may use words or ideas written by other individuals in
publications, websites or other sources, but only with proper attribution. “Proper attribution”
means that you have fully identified the original source and extent of your use of the words or
ideas of others that you reproduce in your work for this course. This is normally done in the form
of a footnote or parenthesis. Failure to do so is plagiarism and is considered a form of academic
dishonesty. Please refer to the UCC Library and Information Centre if you are uncertain how to
cite your references.

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 IMPORTANT NOTE ON PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism is a form of intellectual theft. If you fail to acknowledge your sources or make it
appear that someone else’s work is your own, you are guilty of plagiarism. The scholarly world
operates by exchanging information and crediting the sources of that information. If you violate
that process, you have committed a crime in the academic community. If you are having
difficulty completing a paper on time, or need some additional help, or are unsure of how or
where to document a source, please contact your lecturer or go to the librarian for help so you
can avoid inadvertently or intentionally plagiarizing a source.

You will be charged with plagiarism if you:

❖ Copy from published sources without adequate documentation.
❖ Intentionally or unintentionally appropriate the ideas, language, key terms, or findings of
another without sufficient acknowledgment that such material is not your own and
without acknowledging the source.
❖ Purchase a pre-written paper (either by mail or electronically).
❖ Let someone else write a paper for you.
❖ Reproduce someone else’s project.
❖ Submit as your own someone else’s unpublished work, either with or without permission
❖ Incorrectly cite or neglect to cite borrowed materials

Consequences of Plagiarism
❖ If the final work you submit—all of it—is not yours, it does not matter how you came by
it. Charges of plagiarism are brought to the attention of Academic Affairs, which initiates
an investigation that may lead to formal charges.
❖ The process for the investigation and adjudication of charges may be accessed at the
Dean of Students’ Office.
❖ Plagiarism is a serious offense that can result in a variety of sanctions (failure of the
course in which the plagiarism occurred and suspension from UCC among them).

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 Appropriate Uses of Sources
A mark of strong academic writing is demonstrated when one appropriately identifies sources in
his/her arguments and analyses. This practice is called documentation. Guidelines for how to
correctly cite materials used within your writing and assembling the list of works that you cite in
your paper are available in style manuals. Information from these style manuals can be accessed
in UCC’s Library & Information Centre
❖ Whenever you draw on another’s work, you must specify what you borrowed, whether
facts, opinions, or quotations, and where you borrowed them from.

Avoiding Plagiarism
❖ Contact your lecturer and honestly discuss a strategy for completing an assignment rather
than risk humiliation and legal charges.
❖ Become thoroughly acquainted both with the various ways in which plagiarism is
construed, and with sources of proper documentation.

Reference:
American Psychological Association (2009). Publication manual of the American
Psychological Association, (6th ed.). New York: American Psychological Association

For further information, contact Academic Affairs or UCC’s Library and Information Centre
(876) 906-3000.

END OF DOCUMENT

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