Hyderabad,India.Sep, 2008: "Children offlate have been showing a marked deterioration in their speaking and listening skills" observed D.Ramchandram, a subject expert in public speaking who is conducting a two day workshop on Speaking Skills for kids "Kidz! Speak Up!!!to be held on September 28th and 29th at MediaJunction in Musheerabad on the eve of Dussehra holidays.

The deteriorating speaking skills are partly due to parents and television. Ramchandram pinned most of the blame for the decline on the time children spent watching TV and playing video games. He said this detracted from the time children spent talking to their parents, interacting with them and learning to engage in imaginative play.


"I don’t want to give the impression that all TV and video games are bad but I do want parents to communicate with their children more instead of just putting them in front of the TV and leaving them there.", quickly added Ram. Further he added that all the children are not born natural talkers. They need to learn to become one. Little bit of training can help a child become a confident speaker by making learning a fun activity. Most kids are afraid of speaking because they are afraid of others laughing at them and their mistakes. When you speak to your child, use the necessary " big " words. Explain the meanings in an open, interesting way. You can help your child keep a notebook on new words he/she encounters. This will keep track of her new vocabulary and also to serve as an incentive to spur him/her to learn more and more words to add on to the list. This gives a sense of accomplishment to the child, Ram added.

The workshop will be attended by 25 kids in the age group of 8 to 15 years. The two day workshop will cover subjects such as Video Counselling, Public Speaking Etiquette, Role Plays, Mock Roles, Group Discussions, Debates, Story Telling etc. and others.

Giving tips to parents for inculcating good speaking skills in their children he said, if your child doesn’t read alone, you can start the reading habit by reading the book together. There is no doubt that exposure to language will encourage the child to learn. Learning and practice in the language makes a confident speaker. Once reading becomes a habit, you will be free from all the initial hard work of persuasion. Your guidance is still needed for the choice of books and suitability of content material. When your child becomes a confident speaker, both of you will enjoy many hours of pleasurable small talk together.

Though D.Ramchandram has done many such programmes "Effective Public Speaking" for adults which according to him are more than 35 so far, this will be a special workshop, especially designed for the benefit of kids.

For more details, please get in touch with Ms. D.Kalpana, Media Junction, Mobile: 93913-25568