Toastmasters Public Speaking & Debate: Grades 5-6

About this course

This course is designed to develop primarily the student’s oral communication, in addition to, reading, writing, and media literacy skills that students need for success in their academic programs and daily lives. To help improve their communication, students will analyse literary texts from contemporary and historical periods, interpret informational and graphic texts, and create oral, written, and media texts in a variety of forms. An important focus will be on the use of strategies that contribute to effective communication and speaking ability. Using the Toastmaster philosophy as a foundation for teaching, this course uses a highly structured approach to modelling speaking techniques to help anyone develop a powerfully persuasive presentation and to systematically develop the confidence that comes from being properly prepared.

What you'll learn

By the end of this course, students will:

• Listen in order to understand and respond appropriately in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes;
• Use speaking skills and strategies appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes;
• Reflect on and identify their strengths as listeners and speakers, areas for improvement, and strategies they found most helpful in oral communication situations.

Unit Overview:

1. Shakespeare and Drama

Students become accustom to the roles and responsibilities to run a successful Toastmasters meeting. Students investigate literary connections through a study of Shakespeare and present scenes from the play. They will also present a news report.  

2. Media and Non-fiction

Students analyze aspects of different media forms and create media pieces. Students will analyze public speaking in the media and pay attention to best practices.

3. Famous Speeches and Poetry

Students analyze a variety of famous speeches with attention to reading strategies and making inferences. They develop paragraph writing skills, create a short story narrative speech, and produce a poster presentation for a speech they will give. Students analyze a variety of poems. They produce an anthology of poetry.  

4. Leadership Study: Everyone Communicates Few Connect

Students develop skills in literary analysis including critical reading, questioning, and responding to what they are reading. An extensive study of a leadership and public speaking book is conducted and students write a five-page essay based on a theme or idea in the book.  

Importantly, this course is broken down into four units divided over 16 weeks. The first half of each class will follow a Toastmasters style of meeting. The latter half of each meeting will include a mixture of learning objectives related to the particular unit highlighted above. Students will understand public speaking at a more sophisticated level through the lens of each subsequent unit.