Speaking123 Podcasts

Advanced Project 3 “The Moral of The Story” (4 to 6 mins) requires the speaker to:
- create and tell a story that is entertaining and yet displays moral values.
- tell a story using skills learnt in the previous 2 projects.

“There is always something to be learnt in everything that we experience in life.  We have so many stories to share, so many lessons to learn.  As the VPE, I was caught off guard when informed of some changes to a meeting agenda at the 11^th hour.  After asking around, I couldn’t find a replacement speaker.  So I took up the challenge to ensure that the show would still go on.  The moral of the lesson here, (1) Just Do It, and more importantly (2) If there is a will, there is a way.” ~ 10 Jul 2008

Advanced Project 2 “Let’s Get Personal” (6 to 8 mins) requires the speaker to:
- learn the elements of a good story.

“5 years ago, I nearly killed someone due to a moment of rage. Now, whenever I look back, I feel a sense of relief. It was just a thin line and I could have regreted it for the rest of my life if I had crossed that line of no return. Find out how I had come to my senses at the last moment and prevented a tragedy.” ~ 28 Jun 2008

This speech is Humorously Speaking Advanced Project 4 “Fatherhood”. The title of the speech is “Fatherhood” and the objectives are:

• Prepare a speech that opens with a self-deprecating joke
• String together two or three related jokes in the speech body
• Close the speech with a humorous story

This speech was delivered in Braddell Height Advanced TMC. The evaluator was DTM Gea Ban Peng.

This is a speech about me and my two sons, Ming Liang and Ming Xuan. In this speech, I tried to paint a picture of a pathetic father grumbling about his thankless job of fatherhood. I thought the script is more humorous than my previous speeches. However, it is still difficult to tickle laughter from the audience

Advanced Project 1 “The Folk Tale” (7 to 9 mins) requires the speaker to:
- tell a folk tale that is entertaining and enjoyable for a specific age group.
- use vivid imagery and voice to enhance the tale.

“This is my first advanced project on storytelling. I shared a famous story of wisdom, from the period of the 3 Kingdoms. My pace was too fast and I finished in 7 min 40 sec compared to 9 min (during rehearsal).  I used a large feather fan, symbolic of Strategist Zhuge Liang but my evaluator, Pauline, felt it came in a little late.  I have gathered some more feedback besides those from Pauline and will incorporate them in my next storytelling speech.” ~ 10 Apr 2008

This speech is Humorously Speaking Advanced Project 3 “Make Them Laugh”. The title of the speech is “From Singlish to English” and the objectives are:

• Prepared a speech that opens and closes with humorous stories
• Include jokes in the speech body to illustrate points or maintain audience interest
• Deliver the jokes and stories smoothly and effectively

The speech was delivered at the Braddell Height Advanced TMC. The evaluator was ATMB-CL Kelvin.

After failing the last two humorous speech projects since I was not able to get the audience to laugh, I tried hard to sprinkle more jokes in this speech. Thanks god, I managed to generate more laughter this time round.

This speech is Humorously Speaking Advanced Project 2 “Leave Them With a Smile”. The title of the speech is “My Chronic Woe” and the objectives are:

• Prepare a serious speech that opens and closes with humorous stories
• Prepare a closing story that reemphasizes the speech’s main point
• Deliver the stories smoothly and effectively

My chronic woe is procrastination. In term of humor, this speech is much better than my previous AP1 speech. I manage to get the audience to laugh or chuckle a little bit. I think there are two reasons. Firstly the speech is much more personal, and second I use exaggeration to enhance to the humor eg “my meticulous wife spot a tiny tiny speck of dirt on our car’s window screen”, “try to apply the toastmaster technique thinking on the feet”. It seems to click much better with the audience.

This speech is Humorously Speaking Advanced Project 1 “Warm Up Your Audience”. The title of the speech is “Don’t Listen” and the objectives are:

• Prepare a speech that opens with a humorous story
• Personalize the story
• Deliver the story smoothly and effectively

I got the idea of the speech when I received an email distribution from colleagues forwarding a tiny frog story. However, the crafting of the speech took about two weeks. I added in the part on Taufik Batisah when I watched the 2008 Countdown performance. The comments by Taufik struck a chord with me. In order to dictate what Taufik said that night, I checked out the video from Youtube. After that I scripted out the rest with some input from the internet.

This speech was presented at the TB TMC and the evaluator was Wekie Tay. Wekie had a few good feedbacks for me. First, he felt that the speech was not personal enough. Second, for a humorous speech, the laughter punches were too few, and they were mostly prompting the audience to simile rather than laughing out loud. Lastly, he felt that in terms of pause-punchline-pause technique, there was still room to improve. I do agree very much with him and it was a good evaluation.

I also used the same speech for the CCK TMC speech content held on the 19 Jan 2007, Sat. However, I did not win. I guess again the story was not personal and original enough to win the hearts of the judges.

This is my first humorously Speaking speech. I hope to make people laugh more on the next attempt.