How to conduct Table Topics Session? скачать в хорошем качестве

How to conduct Table Topics Session?

Table Topics is that session of a Toastmasters meeting where we are given the opportunity to practice impromptu speaking. A Table Topics Master (TTM) is the one who hosts this session. He/she calls upon members (as well as guests) and gives them a topic to speak upon for a minimum of one minute. The Importance of a Table Topics Master Table Topics is, in itself, a crucial element of Toastmasters. It allows us to think on our feat and improve our improvisation skills. Honing this ability is important not only for becoming a better speaker but also to help improve our communication in general. Someone needs to be responsible for moderating this session – for creating topics of various difficulties and ensuring the audience is comfortable and engaged enough so that they actually want to come up on stage and attempt a Table Topic. That’s where the Table Topics Master comes in! He/she ensures that members and guests both get a fair chance to speak as well as encourage anxious audience members to give Table Topics a shot! The timing for a Table Topics session is 1 to 2 minutes. 1 minute is the minimum time, 1:30 minutes is the target time and 2 minutes is the maximum time. Speakers are allowed to speak for a maximum of 2:30 in a Table Topic before being disqualified. The script for a Table Topic Master could look something like this:  “Good Morning Toastmaster of the Day, fellow Toastmasters and guests! Table Topics helps members practice the art of improvisation and also helps us think on our feet! This helps us develop four vital communication skills – Listening, Thinking, Organizing and Delivering. The topics that I have prepared for you will hopefully help all of us become better at improvisation. Since we at Toastmasters try and provide a speaking opportunity to maximum audience members, this session is not restricted to members alone. Even the guests can participate! I hope everyone gives this a shot. I may randomly call anyone to participate or you can volunteer to come up on stage yourself by raising your hand. Before we begin, I request the Timer to call out the timing guidelines for the Table Topics Round. When you are done with the session, call on the Timer again to give the timing report. Then, thank the audience for participating and hand the stage back to the Toastmaster of the Day. Topics When you are preparing topics for a Table Topics session, here are few things to keep in mind: Keep the topics related to the theme Keep the topics fairly simple to speak on. The idea is to encourage people to come on stage and practice improvisation. Giving difficult topics and having members speechless on stage won’t help that much One way to determine the difficulty of the topics is to ask yourself if you yourself would be able to speak on the topic for a minute. If you find it doable, include that topic The number of topics that you should prepare will depend on the size of your audience. For a large club (40 members+), about 12-15 topics should do. For a smaller club (below 30 members), 8-12 topics should be enough It’s always better to have a slightly higher number of topics than you expect so in case you can call on more speakers, you don’t run out of topics. Having extra won’t hurt Try and have a few topics which call for humour. This will make the entire session a lot more entertaining Delivery As a Table Topics Master, your job is to ensure that members are feeling comfortable enough to attempt improvisation as it can be challenging. So make sure your approach is friendly and encouraging. When you call a speaker on stage, shake his/her hand, pick up a topic, announce the name of the speaker followed by the topic while looking at the speaker. Then, turn towards the audience, say the topic followed by the name of the speaker. This is to ensure that both, the speaker and the audience have heard the topic properly. When you begin, always start out with an experienced member if possible so guests can get an idea of how Table Topics work. After this, try picking out people who haven’t come on stage that particular meeting. The more people go on stage, the better! Having a good mix of members and guests is vital for a successful Table Topics session. Most Table Topic Masters write down their topics on chits of papers and ask the audience to pick a chit from a bowl or something. This works just fine, but if you want to be different, you can also try some creative approaches to conduct the Table Topics session. Here are a few suggestions: Have audience members pick up a topic from a deck of cards where each card represents a topic Have a bag of random props ready. Ask members to pick up any item from that bag and speak on it for a minute or two This idea can also be used in the “Sell me this” scenario, where you ask members to try and sell whatever item they picked up within the stipulated time.