The Public Speaking Course is a learning path which helps participants in creating and managing public presentations. Nowadays, it is very important to be able both to prepare powerful presentations (in terms of contents as well as of graphic aspects) and to deliver it in a successful way. Two top-level teachers will take care of students during this path.

The course is divided into two main parts:
- during the first one, participants will focus on each topic in order to get the basic knowledge on public speaking with personal assistance;
- in the second part, participants will be involved in a full time activity in group for a few days, with the aim of testing different kind of situations of speaking in public.

The course is grounded in the Four Cornerstones framework (Figure 1). Message clarity and impact are chief course goals. After ensuring that all students have the proper phrasing foundations for effective communication (grammar, mechanics, and sentence structure), the course will introduce them to effective content selection, structure, message delivery, and visual support.

Managers who successfully complete this course will be able to do:

• Prepare and deliver powerful oral presentations that get results.
• Choose topics, points and evidence that carry the most force; organize ideas logically; master their delivery; build in effective visual support.
• Overcome public-speaking fears and prepare messages more swiftly.

Phase I:

The participants will focus on specific problematic areas to ensure the proper foundations for effective communication (grammar, mechanics, and sentence structure), and to focus on improving  pronunciation and accent reduction. During these sessions, language acquisition will be presented through  a variety of engaging and relevant tasks:

• Real life workplace dilemmas
• Case studies
• Panel discussions
• Role-playing (using improvisational techniques)

Throughout these activities, participants will receive personalized feedback to improve their speaking skills. Furthermore, strategies will be given to help in comprehension and navigating a discourse. Having gained these abilities, students will be set up for success for Phase II.

The structure of the course is set up to give the student the flexibility and time to concentrate on their speaking skills. The three hour concentration of English immersion boosts language skills and confidence which allows for improved communication.

Phase II:

The course uses workshop format designed to maximize learning and ensure an efficient delivery.  After learning each set of concepts, participants will apply these concepts by preparing and delivering presentations.  The first part of the course will focus on impromptu presentations (for which speakers have only a few seconds or minutes to prepare), and the second part of the course will focus on extemporaneous presentations (for which speakers may have hours, days, weeks, or months to prepare).

For both types of presentations, the workshop will focus on how to manage the four cornerstones.  More specifically, participants will learn key frameworks that will help them enhance their presentational-speaking abilities in the following ways:

- By analyzing each communication situation: via frameworks that will help the participants to analyze communication purposes and audience needs, interests, and expectations.

- By choosing appropriate content for each message: appropriate topics, points, and evidence.

- By structuring their messages strategically: frameworks that will enable the participants to begin powerfully, to organize their middles logically, and to close effectively.

- By managing vocal and physical delivery features: guidelines that will enable the participants to manage the three most important vocal features (volume, pace, and enunciation), as well as guidelines that will enable the participants to avoid distracting the audience by mismanaging the key visual features (smile and facial expressiveness, posture, gestures, eye contact, and movement).

- By building in effective visual support: guidelines that will help them to use PowerPoint effectively, as well as props and other visual aids.

During the four-day workshop, participants will practice preparing and delivering presentations, receive feedback from peers, and receive individual coaching from the instructors to address individual strengths and weaknesses.  Participants will prepare and deliver impromptu and extemporaneous presentations, including individual and team presentations.

This course is primarily targeted to managers and executives in all fields of business.

The course is designed to help students to improve their language skills, but it is not an English class.

Dr. Craig Snow, Senior Lecturer, School of Hotel Administration, Cornell University has studied, researched, taught, written about, and provided consulting services involving managerial communication for the past 31 years.

He directed the Managerial Communications program at The Olin School of Business at Washington University, served as Assistant Director of the Business Writing program at Purdue University, and has received numerous awards for excellence-in-teaching from Purdue and Cornell.

His teaching is enriched by hands-on experience in business.  He has served as Director and Executive Director of a non-profit organization: a children’s summer sleep-away camp in New York State’s Catskill Mountains.  He has worked as a Senior Communications Specialist for McKinsey & Co. in New York City. And he has provided consulting services for businesses in hospitality, banking, health care, manufacturing, technology, and other service industries.

He is the co-author of Prentice Hall’s Guide to Report Writing (2002).

Margaret Weston Piccoli has worked and taught in the area of foreign language education for nearly twenty years. Prior to moving to Italy, Professor Piccoli was an Italian lecturer at Ithaca College. She has also taught and developed courses for Spanish, Italian, and English for all ability levels. Her main area of interest is second language acquisition and how to improve the teaching of foreign languages.

She is currently on the faculty at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Piacenza. She also consults extensively with academic research groups, academic institutions, and businesses on English communication topics and challenges.

Brochure public speaking English

Brochure public speaking Italiano

Application form Public Speaking:

SPS_Modulo iscrizione_ corso public speaking

For further information:

SPS Srl – Segreteria organizzativa

Tel (+39) 0 789 645744

Fax (+39) 0 789 645745

Email: formazione@spssrl.net