"Public Speaking: Academic Success, Personal Development and Social Cohesion" is the title of the project submitted by the Faculty of Humanities for “la Caixa” Foundation’s 2014 Social Action and Interculturality scheme, which forms part of its Assistance Programme for Social Initiatives. “The project aims to help solve the real problems young people face in debating and expressing themselves orally”, explained Teresa Vallès, the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities.
The project was begun in order to create a genuine symbiosis between school and university. “It offers a way of tackling the important job of training students in oral communication at both secondary-school and university level, while promoting volunteering at university and positive social, civic and environmental values”, declared Vallès.
The aim of the project is to train secondary-school and university students in public speaking. The objective of this method is to teach students how to listen and how to be listened to; or in other words how to reflect, analyse, synthesize and construct arguments, all the while fully respecting the contributions of others.
The Faculty will implement the project by offering speaking workshops to help secondary-school students prepare the oral defence of their Research Project. It will also provide training in public speaking to a group of undergraduate students from the Humanities and Cultural Studies programmes, among others, so they can apply these skills in the awareness-raising workshops they are to run on a voluntary basis at secondary schools in order to promote the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.
In conclusion, the aim of the project is to aid the development of students’ oral communication skills while enabling them to become more responsible and better integrated into society. It is anticipated that around 2,000 students will take part in the initiative.
