Public Speaking Resources

 
 
This website leads to a list of UVA courses on public speaking, listed from intro-level courses to more advanced courses.
 
Listed below are materials from the now inactive website Speak Your Mind, which was a collection of resources for speaking development at UVA. They were picked out because they are considered to be particularly useful.
 
Articles: The Academic Job Talk; Effective Speaking, a Survival Guide; Leadership Presence
& the Courage to Speak; Working with Your Voice; Telling the Tale of Your Research; Top 10 Ways to Conquer Fear of Public Speaking; Perfecting Your Vocal Technique; Speak Up - Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking.
 
Videos: Amy Cuddy's Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are is helpful to many
 
ESL Programs and Support: Check out the Center for American English, Language and Culture, especially some of their courses or programs such as "Conversation Partners."
 
Coaches: Many have experience working with students for whom English is not the first language. Perhaps good matches would be: Kate Burke, Rob Patterson, Lili Powell.
 
Speak! Language Center  in Charlottesville, is a 10 year-old company specializing in the teaching of 12 foreign languages and ESL. http://speaklanguagecenter.com/english/
 
Since adding an ESL program four years ago, we have come to specialize in helping professionals and graduate students perfect their spoken and written English via our customized one-on-one courses. Here is a bit more information about the work we do with the University of Virginia and others in the community, just to raise awareness. We find that many faculty/staff are still not aware of our services or the ability to use their benefits to pay for our programs!
 
  • English/ESL: We specialize in helping professionals who've already achieved a certain level of fluency in English go the extra mile via our one-on-one courses focusing on advanced grammar, pronunciation and strengthening skills needed to facilitate spontaneous speaking. In 2012 we created an ESL program for Darden international MBA students - called B-Speak! - which is going into its third year and involves live and Skype lessons and innovative additions such as a unit on mindfulness designed for us by Marga Odahowski. Last year we began teaching ESL to Darden Hospitality and Food and Beverage employees as well. We are currently working with about 25 UVa employees and postdocs in these individual 10-38 hour courses. English link:  http://speaklanguagecenter.com/english/
  • Speak! provide one-on-one courses to UVA Faculty and Staff, funded by UVA's education benefits ($2,000/year), in foreign languages - Italian, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Farsi, Russian, Polish. We are currently teaching faculty and staff in about 14 different programs or departments - from Drama to History, from the McIntire School to the School of Architecture - and more! Busy UVa folks love the flexibility of our one-on-one courses as they can schedule them at a time and place that works best for them - i.e. evenings, lunchtime, weekends; at Speak! or on UVA Grounds.
  • Provide teaching or teaching assistant opportunities to Curry School students specializing in the teaching of foreign languages.
  • Health Care Spanish program: group and individual courses serving mainly UVA Medical Center staff and School of Nursing as well as others in the community.
  • Group lessons in Italian, Spanish, French for adults and kids.