DEVELOPING children’s public speaking skills, as well as promoting the school’s encouragement of public speaking for all grades were the reasons behind Richards Bay Primary School’s recent orators gala event.
Twenty-one learners from all grades participated in the contest which followed the ATKV (Afrikaanse Taal en Kultuurvereniging) guidelines, but which allowed the learners to speak in either Afrikaans or English.
PHOTOS: Tamlyn Jolly
The learners could choose from a variety of themes and were judged on clarity of speaking, how effectively they used resources to substantiate their arguments, intonation, and how well they developed their theme into an argumentative speech.
All Grade 6s and 7s chose the ‘click’ theme, which centred around technology, its effectiveness in society, as well as its pitfalls and upsides.
Grade 7 learner Ghite Scholtz spoke about the ‘selfie’ generation and argued that, apart from creating memories, there is a dark, narcissistic side to the selfie phenomenon.
‘You are not your selfie, you are so much more,’ concluded Ghite.
It was clear that all learners had thoroughly researched and prepared their topics and none let the judges or audience get the better of them.
Grade 1 pupil Jazmika Chetty even chose to deliver her speech about bugs without the aid of a key card.
Alexes Bester’s speech about ‘goggas’ won him the Grade 1 category.
Luzaan Jacobs was best of the Grade 2s, with her ‘reënboog’ speech.
Wijtske Fourie’s ‘blink’ speech won her the Grade 3 category, while Hanno de Koning’s ‘note’ was best of the Grade 4s.
The Grade 5 category was won by Jane Strachan and his ‘blou’ speech.
Leela-Rose Jewlall was best of the Grade 6s, with her speech about technology and job loss to robots, while Ghite Scholtz’s ‘selfie’ generation speech won her the Grade 7 category.
For the Grade 6s and 7s, an unprepared speech was included in the contest. Learners were given a topic and an hour to prepare.
The marks from this speech counted 70% towards their overall marks for the contest.
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