The gift of the gab
Logie Bruce Lockhart
One of the particular magisterial bees in my mortar board is a pastime I run with sixth- formers, rather pretentiously called 'Public Speaking'. All headmasters love the sound of their own voices, and I am no exception. but this occupation is not a disguised way of enabling me to show my pupils how wittily I speak. It is an attempt to fill a con- spicuous gap in the use of the spoken word.
No doubt there are others working hard to answer the need; if so, we hear far too little about it. There are debating societies, there are gifted play producers, there are inspiring English teachers who make time for oral work. There is even a thing called elocution, which has a place, but also has slightly off-putting overtones. It can conjure up visions of ladies, who are models of development and etiquette, ironing out rich local accents in order to produce impeccably exaggerated articula- tion: the consequent inflexible- perfection goes down well at Carol Service lessons, but can for years be traced as a blemish. on otherwise great talents. All these attempts
at oral education are a help, but inadequate.
'Public Speaking' is a luxury, insofar as the ideal number for a group is about seven or eight and one cannot get very far if one has less than ninety minutes at one's disposal. What one attempts to do, and how far one succeeds, must depend on the age, interests and talents of the group. I must admit that I have recently been lucky enough to work with a really lively set of sixth-formers, whicii makes it all un- realistically easy.
The first stage is to get them to read well, not just clearly and accurately, but as an art. This involves a full range of dynamics, from stage whispers to bellowings or screams; it means a variety of material from simple prose to complex modern poetry or dialogues requiring sharp characterisation, dialect and mimicry; it calls for settings varying from a drawing room fireside to a vast hall or an open-air thea,re.
When they read well, the next stage is to develop their reading speed and memory, so that the glance which normally assimilates a breathful of half a dozen words can retain twelve to twenty words without a second look at the page. It is a training in swift looking ahead, and in lightning decisions over meaning and stress. Eventually it hopes to raise the readers to membership of that rare and precious minority who can master the tale they tell in such a way that it seems to come straight from within them without interference of the printed word. With the art of reading goes the art of alert and critical listening: no reading should take place without the audience following it up with criticism and analysis.
While all this is great fun and provides a marvellous excuse to introduce the young to gems of literature outside all school syllabuses, it is only an indispensable preliminary to the art of speaking. The group graduates from three-minute lectur- ettes of their own choice with notes, to ten-minute talks without notes on subjects not of their choosing. When they have the confidence to conquer the 'you knows', the 'well ... ers' and the 'sort ofs', which initially take the place of thought with most youngsters, even in the sixth form, one can move on to more interesting and demanding exercises.
Story-telling is an art which a surprisingly large number of them excel at almost at once. There have been memorable bedtime stories from a teenage Uncle Tom, Dick or Harry, whose children, some years hence, will spend fascinating evenings. Their debates, in which everyone must participate and in which all criticise each other ruthlessly frankly, are a splendid prepara- tion for the real thing and raise the level of general school debates. Mock television interviews carried out realistically to a strict time limit, with interviewer and strongly opposed protagonists dealing with contro- versial issues, are enjoyable and instructive.
They make little speeches of introduction and votes of thanks; they make adjudi- cators' speeches awarding prizes for art or reading. Above all, they learn to describe.
Have you ever realised how cramped is the average Briton's capacity to describe what he has seen? Latins use gesture, Americans and Germans use words. Even intelligent and literate Britons rely on grunts; most boys and girls are desperately short of vocabulary to describe texture (granular, tacky), or grades of colour (magenta, vermilion). They develop des- criptive ability by learning to label subtle distinctions and by describing simple pictures as vividly and accurately as they can—especially portraits. The audience are always surprised and entertained when the original is shown.
Not less instructive are the exercises used by selection boards. Groups of seven are seated round a table to discuss contro- versial contemporary issues: Northern Ireland, abortion, art subsidies, euthanasia. In each group a natural leader emerges whose views are listened to by the others with respect. Other characteristics nearly always emerge; there is the shrewd, but reserved observer, who waits to see the mistakes of others and points them out; there is the timid non-contributor; there is the blusterer who seeks to talk the others down. If you have several groups and change the numbers, the roles will change too: the silent blossom into verbiage, and the blusterers shut up. Another selection board game which is valuable is the planned exercise, in which the group is given a specific problem to solve in a given time, with or without the use of a chairman. At the end they are required to explain their decisions and to justify them against sharp criticism.
We have also come to use the group as a framework for dummy runs for university interviews, with the students themselves providing Deans of Admission and speci- alist subject tutors. As ever, they offer criticisms and a report on their assessment. The job is often more thoroughly done than the real interview which awaits them.
I do not suppose the whole enterprise is profoundly original, but it is fun. There must be others doing similar things, no doubt with better ideas and techniques, if only we could pool our experience. It is designed to lead to shared enthusiasms, increased confidence, an ability to master arguments, to spot flaws in logic, to express one's sense of humour, to assess the validity of different points of view, to acquire relaxed freedom of gesture, to convey sincerity, to harness emotions. How far it succeeds I don't know; that it has already produced a President of the Cambridge Union was probably a stroke of luck. I believe that every school should run something of the kind, depending on the time and resources which can be made available. Whether it works with conscripts,
or with boys and girls of lesser ability don't know: shortage of suitable staff and sufficient time may make it difficult. But the attempt should be made as extensively as possible.
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