As a children's book illustrator there are often times that you are required to speak to a group of people, many of times which include kids. Now I know that for many people, the thought of speaking in front of any size group whether they be kids or not can be a scary thing. But there are things and activities that can make things a lot smoother like getting the kids involved through questions and small activities. But if you are someone who would really like to learn how to do these and don't want to learn in front of an audience, I would recommend looking at a workshop that the Minnesota Humanities Center is offering this January and May. It is a class titled "Reading Aloud Basics" and is a class that is devoted to gaining knowledge about the impact of reading aloud to groups of children.
The workshops are offered either on
Saturday, Jan 31, 2009 from 10-noon
or
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 from 6-8 pm
The fee is $35 and they are going to focus on the following:
1. Benefits of reading aloud
2. Tips for reading aloud
3. Book/story related activities
4. Discussion questions with reading aloud
For more information you can visit their website at Minnesota Humanities Center
4 comments:
Wow! That is really ccol. Thanks for posting it!
No problem Nina. I think it would be a very interesting class for someone who is apprehensive about speaking in front of a group.
Speaking in front of groups would have terrified my 20 years ago. After working for an airline for many years, I outgrew that fear when I realized that many people don't really listen anyway - thought that's definitely a different audience than what you're talking about. It did help me though.
I have since done some organized talks and I'm much better at it now. Someone once told me that groups that you're speaking to really want the speaker to be successful so that helps too. Alyson Stanfield suggested joining a toastmasters group to learn how to speak, but I've never followed up on that.
If I lived in MN - I'd definitely sign up for this class...
I know what you mean Cynthia about speaking in front of people. It took a little while to get over most of the nerves, but there are always those jitters that happen before hand no matter how many groups I speak to. Guess that is good and would be bad if it seemed too comfortable.
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