Picture your child as a poised speaker, adept at engaging audiences, shaping opinions, and leaving a lasting impression whenever they speak. This isn’t a far-off aspiration; it’s the art of persuasion, and today, we reveal some strategies that can help make it a reality.
In the realm of effective communication, speeches serve a myriad of purposes, but they can generally be categorised into three main objectives: to inform, to persuade, or to entertain. Today, we focus on the compelling realm of persuasion, exploring structures that can help your child become a more persuasive speaker.
Here are some common persuasive speaking structures your child can practise and use for general communication:
- Pros and Cons: here your child presents the advantages & disadvantages of a topic. This is effective because it helps to provide a balanced perspective on the topic which increases trust and credibility. It also allows the audience the opportunity to weigh up these pros & cons and come to their own conclusions.
- Cause & Effect: your child can presents the causes (why it happened) of a particular problem, and then explore the effects (what happened as a result) of those causes. This allows you and your audience to have a deeper understanding of the problem and its implications, and help identify potential solutions. You can include signal words such as: so; as a result; because; therefore; consequently; due to; or, which caused to help explain your cause and effect clearly.
- Compare & Contrast: here your child can presents two or more ideas or perspectives, and then compares and contrasts them. This helps to provide a clear and detailed analysis of the similarities and differences between ideas, and can be used to highlight the strengths & weaknesses of each perspective.
It’s important to know when to use each of the above persuasive speaking structures, as they are better suited to different speaking occasions and objectives.
At Super Speak, our award-winning program caters to children aged 6-14, imparting essential public speaking and presentation skills, including the art of delivering persuasive speeches. Our engaging learning program blends public speaking and drama to ensure students gain comprehensive learning outcomes, benefiting them in and out of the classroom. With an experienced teaching team and the most extensive curriculum in Australia, our classes offer a fun, supportive, and high-energy learning experience. As a result, our students grow into confident public speakers and effective everyday communicators. Discover the Super Speak Public Speaking Program today and join over 65,000 children who have entrusted their development journey to Super Speak since 2006.
