Teachers often assign oral activities, but they don’t usually spend much time teaching students how to be successful with those activities. What does it take for students to be effective oral communicators? In this program, veteran teacher and author, Erik Palmer, presents an approach to teaching speaking skills that is focused on preparing students for 21st-century communication both inside and beyond the classroom. It takes students to elementary, middle, and high school classrooms where teachers are guiding and assessing students in collaborative discussions, media literacy, questioning and reasoning, speech presentation, effective multimedia use, and adapting speech to different content and tasks. It explores the concept of PVLEGS (Poise, Voice, Life, Eye contact, Gestures, Speed) and how this concept can help students become more effective public speakers. Throughout the video, Palmer provides his expert advice on how teachers can focus on oral communication in their classroom and how these techniques can be implemented on a school-wide basis. The program also shows him jump in the classroom with a lesson on making thoughtful and targeted presentations to different audiences.

Originally released by Association for Supervision and Curriculum Developement d/b/a ASCD, 2016. Streaming video file encoded with permission for digital streaming by Infobase on February 11, 2020.