Advice to young speakers

I had a couple of chances these past few weeks to serve as a judge in public speaking competitions involving young Filipino students in high school and college, and the experience reminded me of how, once upon a time — before we all turned to singing and dancing or simply surviving our way to fame, Big Brother-style — public speaking and oratorical contests were considered de rigueur for the precocious Pinoy.

In grade school in the ’60s, we even had a subject called “Declamation,” which culminated in an annual competition among representatives from various grades and classes, doing their best if somewhat squawky impressions of the likes of Shakespeare and Whitman. We were good Catholic boys in a semi-colonial private school, where our textbooks miraculously transported us to virgin snow in Idaho (in contrast to the unspeakable horrors of Communism in places like Red China — where, warned our teacher, devout Christians were skewered through the ears with barbecue sticks).

In that benignly disembodied environment, it was perfectly natural for us to recite Patrick Henry’s speech to the Virginia colonists (“They tell us, Sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary” — and you can imagine what “so formidable an adversary” sounds like on the lips of a 10-year-old). We knew the Gettysburg Address by heart, as well as perennials like “Invictus” and “O Captain, My Captain!” We thought nothing of donning white bedsheets, clutching little bags of ketchup under our senatorial robes, so we could stab Caesar with our bamboo knives and let Mark Antony call on “Friends, Romans, countrymen!” I was most impressed by a silver-tongued classmate named Johnny Valdes (who later became a pioneer in the air-cargo business), who took on Christopher Marlowe’s rich, dark version of Faustus, pleading for the demons of the night to vanish: “Lente, lente, currite noctis equi!” I didn’t have a clue what it meant then, and even with a PhD in English I’m not sure I do now, but it sounded mighty terrific.

And what did I declaim? One year, it was Carlos P. Romulo’s “I am a Filipino” (“… and these are my people: short, sunburnt men who love to fling the salty net….” — so you can imagine a short, sunburnt boy practicing how to fling a salty net, whatever that was). Another year, it was John Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale,” a frighteningly complicated piece that had my teacher explaining to me how the word “Provencal” was pronounced (again, whatever that was) but had the virtue of containing what one critic has called the most beautiful image in all of English poetry: “magic casements, opening on the foam of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn.”

Memorizing and reciting poetry was difficult (and, as with many things difficult, also surprisingly pleasurable) enough; extemporaneous public speaking was even more challenging — without the crutch of a script, we now had to come up with our own ideas. Usually those ideas had to do with big things like democracy, nationalism, idealism, science, etc., and we harrumphed our way through to the finals of events like the Voice of Democracy competition. In high school, I looked up to such gifted speakers as Rodel Rodis (now a lawyer and community leader in San Francisco) at the same time that I envied the writing prowess of two people on the other side of Diliman, older than me by just a few years: Joey Arcellana and Gary Olivar.

We were all, I suspect, speaking well beyond our years, like 12-year-old singing contestants warbling about heartache and lost loves, but then the times called for it. We were just a few steps away from marching in the streets to protest American imperialism, militarization, oil price hikes, and all the aggravations that heralded martial law. Big times called for big words, and we were happy and proud to know them, and used them shamelessly.

In one of the public speaking events I recently judged, fellow judge Manolo Quezon and I chatted backstage about public speaking then and now. Manolo was curious about what I thought the difference was, and I had to preface my response with the obligatory caveat that older people tend to romanticize their past and to imagine that everything was better back then — but eventually I said that, yes, I thought I heard better speakers in my time, not just because of the big ideas they took on, but because they seemed to know what they were talking about, speaking with a persuasive command of the details of particular situations. And that was without the benefit of Google or the Internet.

Don’t get me wrong: I was also much impressed by the oratorical skills of the winners of the two contests I judged, and by quite a few of the finalists, and my warmest congratulations go out to them. Sheer talent will always rise to the top. I was bothered, however, by the obvious problems of those who didn’t do so well; their shortcomings weren’t irremediable, which led me to make this short list of suggestions for would-be public speakers:

1. Say something sensible and interesting. Nothing counts more with judges than good ideas — sharp, fresh, thought-provoking, and reasonable or well-reasoned. Strategize. Think of what everyone else will likely be saying — and find something else to say, or another way of saying it.

2. Speak from your own experience, and deal with specifics. Motherhood statements, clichés, and generalizations that you can buy off the shelf will impress no one, especially if all you’re doing is stringing them up one after the other. (Please, no more “The youth is the hope of the fatherland” — but if you have to say it, at least quote Rizal correctly: “the fair hope of the fatherland.”)

3. Read or watch the news. Show some awareness of and concern for what’s going on around you. It’s typical of today’s youth (and us their elders) to speak of “me, me, me,” and that’s all right for starters (see No. 2 above), but make or suggest the connection between your situation and that of many others. Balance those references to Tolkien and Harry Potter with Mindanao and the here-and-now.

4. Compose yourself. No shouting and no shrillness, please. Go easy on the space fillers: “ladies and gentlemen,” “I firmly believe,” “so to speak,” etc. Clarity and sincerity are more important than a twangy accent.

5. Find good coaches, and listen to them. Our two ESU international public speaking champions — Tricia Evangelista in 2004 and Gian Dapul in 2008 — were gifted speakers to begin with, but had the humility and the discipline to listen to their coaches, and to stick with the plan. Know your limitations, and welcome professional advice from those with more experience.

Above all these, remember that public speaking — like writing — is just one more way to personal fulfillment and happiness. Don’t take it or yourself too seriously. Don’t feel like you have to make a killer of a speech every time you open your mouth.

I took public speaking as a personal challenge. One of my grade-school teachers actually did me a favor by taking me aside to tell me that I was never going to make it as a public speaker; I had a speech defect, he said, that was going to make it very hard for me to win any medals for public speaking. In a way, he was right. I never did win a prize for public speaking, but I built up enough confidence to address any classroom or conference, anywhere, anytime. Speaking as a teacher, that’s public speaking where it still might make a difference, and it’s good enough for me.

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E-mail me at penmanila@yahoo.com, and visit my blog at www.penmanila.net.