Ten Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught

Technical Communication Quarterly, 1998

LCC Working Papers, Issue 9, 2023

TEDTalks are among the most well-known and influential speech platforms, delivering "ideas worth sharing." Streaming free to a worldwide audience, TEDTalks inspire, inform, teach, entertain, and for educators, become valuable pedagogical resources as speech models. In our Language and Communication Centre (LCC) courses, we ask our students to give an oral presentation based on their research at the end of term. Typical lessons may include slides, videos, activities, and other scaffolded activities that lead to the final class day with presentations. Yet, one of the most valuable experiences I've gained as an instructor was giving a presentation myself. On Sept 10, 2022, I presented at TEDxNTU's "Pause to Progress" event at the Nanyang Auditorium on campus at Nanyang Technological University. In my TEDx talk 'Making Fun in Public Communication', I discussed how humor is effective in teaching while being entertaining. I drew upon my research on national campaign posters and cooking shows to illustrate the key points. In preparation for my talk, I became a student of TEDTalks. I watched dozens of TEDTalk videos, read books about it (such as Talk Like Ted by Carmine Gallo and TEDTalks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking by Chris Anderson), and I practiced, practiced, and practiced. Eight key elements I learned in preparing for and presenting are: 1) focus on one idea; 2) include storytelling; 3) memorize the script; 4) emphasize body language; 5) rehearse; 6) enjoy; 7) have a support team; and 8) share the experience. Along with these key elements, here are strategies to apply in your own classroom and in teaching presentation skills along with some tips for your students.

In response to the lecture format coming under ‘attack’ and being replaced by online materials and smaller tutorials, this paper attempts to offer not only a defence but also to assert that the potential value of the lecture is difficult to replicate through other learning formats. Some of the criticisms against lectures will be challenged, in particular that they are monological and promote a banking concept to learning. To make this argument, Freire’s ‘banking concept’ and Vygotsky’s notion of ‘inner speech’ shall be referenced and it shall be claimed that listening is a virtue. There is a review of some of the unique features of lectures and it shall be argued that the sort of thinking, appropriate for higher education, can be encouraged by the lecturer as ‘expert thinking aloud’, embodying what it means to know, to think and to action one’s academic freedom as a curriculum worker.

2020

"My ultimate goal is for students to become independent learners so that they won't need me or someone like me when they graduate." Posting about applying flipped instruction in the university classroom from In All Things-an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God's creation. https://inallthings.org/the-irony-of-a-well-presented-lecture/

Quarterly Journal of Speech, 2007

Res Rhetorica, 2020

2010

Concerning the nature of cognition, language, and communication. For posterity's sake, really, but one of the first essay's I wrote after reentering school.