‘AH’s’, ‘um ‘s’, ‘er’s’, and similar speech stumbles need to be avoided for the sake of fluency. Too many glitches may have the audience thinking you are unclear on your subject. Aim for ‘zero’.

Use notes as prompts, but try and avoid detailed reading. A speaker is more effective when speaking rather than being slavishly locked into notes. Notes can reduce the speaker’s confidence.

Consider vocalisation, the pitch, rhythm, intonation and vibrancy of voice. Live your message through your voice. Articulate carefully and correctly, and never come with a gabbling rush of words.

Speakers need to think about THANK YOU often offered at the end of a presentation. Realistically it is the audience who should be offering thanks to the presenter for his or her contribution.

Watch out for DISTRACTING GESTURES. Scratching parts of body while presenting needs avoiding. Don’t scratch nose, squint, overuse eyebrow wrinkle. Involuntary actions can be off-putting.

INJECT HUMOUR into speech, but AVOID LAUGHING at that humour. Humour engages and focuses audience groups. However, those same audiences can be off-put if speakers laugh at their own
jokes.

When presenting DON’T SHUFFLE

Movement is a part of gesture. Movement can be illustrative and points (of delivery) reinforcing. If movement is meangless stand in a relaxed but stationary manner.

SOME SPEAKERS GO ON AND ON FOREVER. What starts well goes downhill and the presenter loses it. I once heard that 24 minutes was the ideal time for any presentation where presenter owns the floor.

Presenters need to ensure that DRESS supports and enhances their podium status.The finest presentation in the world will be ruined if presenters do not respect audience by looking the part.

They detract. Speakers generally know what they want to say. I recommend small cards that snug into the palm of the hand. List KEY WORDS as prompts for what you wany to say.

CONFIDENT SPEAKERS in an informal situation can go to pieces in formal situations. They pull down a blind in their minds which says ‘ uptight time’. Make sure the blind is never pulled down.

Make sure that topics have a beginning, middle and end. PLAN for presentations to establish, build and ebb to a telling and final conclusion. Balance within discourse is a key and essential need.

SPEAK FROM THE HEART

Never be a ‘veneer speaker’ whose polish belies his/her commitment to the subject. Be a person remembered by the audience for sincerity. Speak to, not ‘down’ to your listeners.

Speakers and presenters should aim to embrace the audience, drawing listeners toward him or her by the power of sincerely uttered words. This will being them ‘together as one’ in a sharing context.

Listen carefully to speakers and EVALUATE them for strengths and elements of presentation you feel they might do differently and better. The exercise helps you focus on message and messenger.

Education these days overly focuses on accountability and discounts the importance of teaching and learning Box ticking and accreditation are largely about foolish accountability requirements. The focus on structure and not function (the teaching and development of the child/children) is distorting education.

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All the very best for school holidays to students, teachers and school staff. May you all have a restful fortnight’s break, in readiness for term four and the business end of the academic year.

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Education these days overly focuses on accountability and discounts the importance of teaching and learning Box ticking and accreditation are largely about foolish accountability requirements. The focus on structure and not function (the teaching and development of the child/children) is distorting education.

The principle of schools being for children has largely been forgotten.

Education these days overly focuses on accountability and discounts the importance of teaching and learning Box ticking and accreditation are largely about foolish accountability requirements. The focus on structure and not function (the teaching and development of the child/children) is distorting education.
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The Education Engagement Strategy, when translated into outcomes and recommendations, will ONLY work if students attend school every day. Sporadic school attendance and truancy are chronic issues and have been for decades in some sections of the community. Action, not talk, is the only way forward and that action has to include regular school attendance.
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Free dental services for school students (NT News 20/9) are not ‘new’. This Dental support services used to be available to all urban schools, with most having their own dedicated dental clinics. Clinics were operated by staff on a rotational basis. The program extended to include dental health staff visiting towns and many remote communities for preventative and corrective dental care. These programs operated during the 1970’s and 80’s but for various reasons, were let go during the 1990’s. Any reinstatement will benefit students; dental health should always be prioritised for school aged children.

EDUCATIONAL POINTS TO PONDER

The ICAC report and recommendations on the Milingimbi School funding situation and monetary use, raise two very important points. Firstly, school principals and finance managers have to be scrupulously circumspect in the way priorities are established for the use of funds. Secondly, the Department of Education audit processes must involve an examination of school accounts and not be about rubber stamping without checking. A situation like Milingimbi reflects badly on the budgetary management of all schools and that is not fair.

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The decision by the Charles Darwin University Board to reinstate the Diploma of Nursing is very good news. Hopefully the revamped program will have a strong focus on practical skills including bedside manner and relationships with patients. Too often, modern training has a clinical focus but not one that includes the way nurses interact with those being treated.

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Educators and those who place a high level of emphasis and importance on NAPLAN tests (NT News 25/8) will be delighted at the upturn in NT competencies confirmed by the May 2021 results. This is great news and helps confirm the benefits of ongoing face to face teaching in our schools. Opportunities for many students in other states have been hindered by school closures and forced online learning.

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PRIORITISING TEACHING

Get some good teachers and listen to what the good teachers say and do what the good teachers advise. Teach children the methodology behind learning. Tell them and show them. Train the students. Teacher students to have exploring minds and to be independent.

Focus on system and routines in the first instance.

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Box ticking and accreditation are largely about foolish accountability requirements. It is about systems (structure) and not function (the teaching and development of the child/children).

To

Much of the accreditation is pure garbage.

Marg Rogers Lecturer, Early Childhood Education at the University of New England wrote. “We have so many educators who want to do their job but are dealing with the systems/structure … It would be great to have the function at the forefront of the educator’s mind so they can fully engage with children every day.” The Conversation 22/9/21

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