Today, in schools and colleges, there are many competitions regarding the knowledge of English usage. Writing essays, articles, speeches etc. are all in this field. Contemporary Elocution is also a part of this field. In fact, above all other English usage competitions, Contemporary Elocution is the toughest one. In this type of competitions, the speakers are given the topics to speak on at the same time they step upon the stage. The hardest part of this type of competition is that one gets really less amount of time to take and plan separately think what one is going to plan before speak. One gets merely a couple of seconds to think in which one can think almost nothing. So we can say that in contemporary Elocution, one does not get time to think for what he is going to speak on the stage.
Today, it has become really very necessary to be able to speak to the masses in order to expose one's idea to the masses for a big planning or just in order to tell them what one thinks. In such cases, people do not need to think before speaking, or make a separate plan. There are many politicians who give contemporary speeches, like Rahul Gandhi, but at the same time, there are politicians, who despite of being so big personalities, use speech sheets to speak and they see those papers and then just vomit whatever they had written or their PA had.
Anyway, let me not distort from the main aim of this topic. Via the last paragraph, the only thing which I was trying to show is that the best part of contemporary speeches is that it is a real one and we have nothing unrealistic behind our tongues. But it is not as easy to do as easy to think about. The main aim of such contemporary elocution competitions are that one can learn how to speak without thinking specially for hours. One just needs to learn how he can be made to speak in various circumstances like in press conferences when we are contradicted by many people.
Due to the toughness in this competition, many people do not participate in these competitions, and they think that these are not for them, but they can do it. You just need to keep certain ideas in mind during the competition, following which one can perform really better or even best which I am going to tell as follows.
Before The Competition Practices
Read More Books - Yes, reading more books can help a student very much during contemporary elocution. By reading books one can develop reading habits and then develop one's vocabulary too. Using this habit, one can learn many a things like how to build up sentences in a way in which it looks attractive.
One can develop a habit to consult the dictionary when he/she finds a word, the meaning of which he/she does not know.
Underlining Habits - This habit while reading books can help a lot. One does not read literature all the times. Many of the times we end up reading science books as well and in them we can find many a words which can help us enrich our vocabulary with even good words.
Firstly let me tell you what is the benefit of underlining the words. Why do we underline words or sentences actually. A simple answer is to remember those specifically special words or sentences for a long period of time. But why is it so? Why are we able to remember things which we underline in the books or notebooks? There is a reason to this. It is a psychological thing. We remember all those things to which we add some "special remarks" and underlining is the same case when it comes to education. In science books, don't we underline definitions many a times? Yes, we do, just in order to retain it for a longer period.
Another way, in which underlining can help us is that it can draw our attention towards itself so that we can see those words, phrases or sentences whenever we begin to take a glance in a hurry, and we notice them. Doing this, we can learn those things for a longer time and maybe forever too.
Oral English Practices - Writing and speaking are two different things. I must say that there are three kinds of people in this world - first are those who are only good at reading skills, second are those who are specialized in writing and the third are those who expertise in both.
Let me tell you now one thing that people, who are good at both, i.e. the people of the third kind are only eligible for Contemporary speeches or elocution competitions. We need to have good practice for oratory English because that is what helps us in the real time. We should also not forget the benefits of writing.
Oratory English can help us in many ways. It helps us to eliminate our fear which stops us to speak perfect English. Further, it enriches our grammar skills because it is we who can judge ourselves better than any other judge in the world (but only if, we 'accept' things. Oratory English can let us think how we pronounce. Pronunciation is something which we cannot learn just by grabbing the writing part. It is necessary to have perfect oratory English which basically includes fluency and pronunciation.
Reading Newspapers - Why reading newspapers? The editors of newspapers are always really excellent people when it comes to usage of English. So reading more and more English newspapers can benefit us to increase our grammatical, and vocabulary skills. Plus it helps us to sharpen the skills of sentence development.
Moreover, it is of more benefit, the general one, i.e. to make oneself aware of the current news.
Listening To Speeches - Often, students find boring to listen to the speeches and lectures that there teachers, professors, lecturers make. Yes, even I agree that sometimes it is boring but not always.
One can also gain confidence and enrich the vocabulary by listening to other people who have good oral English. They may be anyone. Sometimes, there are fellow students only who have great English and rather than feeling jealous, we can admire them and can gain more. Moreover, one should try to find the style of people who read anything because this is the main way by which we purify our pronunciation.
During The Competition Practices
Be Confident - Yes, of course, the biggest requirement of being a good contestant in contemporary elocution is to have confident on oneself. It often happens that people think after seeing the competitors performance, be it a small kid of prep class or be it big doctors and politicians or lecturers, we all have fear till some extent that he/she has done better than me or will be doing better than me.
To avoid this type of fear simply, keep smiling during the competition. In fact, the next ways which I am going to talk about depend on developing the confidence level only during speaking.
Listen To Other Contestants - When we listen to the pieces of other contestants, we often try to find out what we don't have to their match and we find out what more they have. This makes us afraid for the real performance. We can eliminate this problem by simply listening to them and just admiring their pieces and if possible, to find out, how one can make better and different piece than his/her rival.
Stay Calm and Relaxed - It is often seen that as we hear the topic heading, we just begin to shiver in a contemporary elocution competition.
One must try to stay calm and relaxed when we listen to the topic and begin to speak. One must think that he/she is lucky to get that topic, because no one else can speak better on this topic. By doing this, we will not feel tensed and will not stammer like many people do. If we stammer in the very first line itself, the judges may think that we are not professionals, and if they get to think so, we are drowned at first.
Usage of Good Sentences and Idioms - During the realtime performance, there are many times that speeches are made a good one, but then there is no beauty in the speech. The words all look to be monotonous all around the speech and the audience tends to sleep or tends to yawn and think that this speech is nothing but a stress making exercise. So we can actually use some sayings in the speech to add to the beauty of the speech. It is a very good idea always to start the speech itself with a saying or so. This attracts the audience and forces him to keep listening to the speech. This does not let them think that the speech was full of boredom. We can use sayings in the middle too, sometimes, for it regains the attention of the audience and pays to the speech maker. But it is also not a very good idea to use too many sayings all over the speech. It snatches away the beauty of the speech because people then tend to think that this speech maker knows nothing and is simply trying to boast by using so many sayings.
If Not Exact To The Point, Then At Least Be Around The Bush - As seen very often, the tough language used in the title of the topic disables the orator to get that topic fully. In this case, the orator understands only a part of what is needed to be spoken. In such cases, fear and shivering is at its peak.
Its not one's mistake. It is what many people suffer from. But what we can do is that instead of getting nervous, and distracting fully from the topic, we can be around the bushes at least, i.e. we can move around the main topic at least. We can do this by relating each and everything to what we understood in the topic.
Be Realistic - You might be thinking that I will stretch this subheading, but I am not going to do so. I am straightforward going to tell you what I want to tell you. In contemporary speeches, people often fell into unrealistic work of words which makes their piece an ordinary one. To be the best, one must try his/her best in order to throw a really practical one. Even if one does not have really good vocabulary, but if done so, one can easily win the judge's mind.
According to me, if these points are kept in one's mind, then one can surely deliver a nice one at the competition. I don't think that we can give something as a sample for a contemporary speech but I think that I can give an example of usage of good English skill via one of my own resources. Read it, and think how it is and find out what more can you put up there.
Sample Usage
Indians don't get Nobel (prize) in India. Why?
Recently to the world emerged a person named Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, as the winner of the Nobel prize in the field of Chemistry. Wow, glad he is an Indian, but Alas! He does not live in India? Yes, this is what I want to speak about. There is something which stops Indians living in India win the Nobel Peace Prize. After reading an article of Mr. Shashi Shekhar in Hindustan newspaper, I thought to bring this to the ISCers too. The thing which I want to say that the person named Venkatraman Ramakrishnan has brought big respect to his country, but he won the prize when he was actually in USA. I want to ask that if he were living in India, could he win the Nobel prize for the Chemists? Could he be highlighted? No, he wouldn't.
Why do the Indians get the Nobel prize when they live in USA actually. USA is a place which knows how to attract people and make the honest, greedy. Whenever they see any intelligent person, no matter, in which work he/she is involved, they just know how to deal with them. Recently, Barak Hussain Obama won the Nobel Prize for Peace. Is he better than Mr Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, whom Mr. Obama also respects. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi had put the base of non-violence. He made India free without using violence as his nature, and without any other unfair means. He walked on the path of non-violence and even continued to do so, when he was put in the jail by the Britishers. Did the people who chose the winners for the Nobel Prize do fair with our father of the nation? They did not, I think. They did not think him so deserving that he should have got the Nobel Peace Prize. Remember, he had done the job when there was no efficient media system developed to help Gandhi like it is today.
Today, even when Mr Amitabh Bachchan goes for a blood test for diabetes, it becomes an international news and people read it. But was it like this, so sensitive, the media during the times of Mahatma Gandhi? No, it was not. One thing is for sure that the work which M K Gandhi"ji" did is not a something, which awaits for a prize. We understand this by the popularity which he has gained, for the immense work that he did. People remember him today even and children when write the essay today even, they write on Mahatma Gandhi, because he is the most renowned person of India.
Anyway, let me come back again to the point. Not only Indians but other people too, have won the Nobel Prize when they resided in USA only. Take for instance, the great German Scientist, Albert Einstein. He left his own country, Germany and came USA and resided there and won the peace prize there only. What is it that we give so much value to the prize which only looks in the hands of USA?
Since years, we waited for a person living in India to get the Nobel Prize but no, it just left to be a dream only and never come true. Some factors like this have made people of India leave India and become a NRI and reside somewhere else. The popular example which can be cited is the software engineers of India and the famous, so called intelligent IITians. Majority of them walk away, for they get more money for what they do. I won't blame them because it is a natural act and it is somewhere the weakness of India which has led them do this. But what if we can sacrifice ourselves for the country. What if we live in our own country and work. Will we be able to get attention of so many people out in the world as we can get in USA for the same work we do?
There is something like a local performer of Rajasthan when comes to Mumbai and plays Iktara, people think that he is a begger, but a painter in London when paints the faces of the people walking in the street, gets respect as well as wealth. What is this actually? Is it perfect for us? Today, if we see an Indian doing something great in India, either we get jealous of him, or we notice him for a very short time when we see him in the newspapers, but we read the news like Japan is going to employ 2,00,000 Indians in the next two years.
We will just have to learn their language to earn bigger sums of money. If we just leave our country, dump our Indian culture, forget our Indian languages, we can earn too much. This is the thinking which suppresses the intelligent people born in India to go to other lands to get attention, respect and money. This is something which if continues, India will be doomed sooner or later. All I want to say is that people of India belong to India, so love India, and work for it, disregarding some money, some attention. I bet, it is for sure that if we do so, we will be noticed someday, someday in our own land, in our own country, INDIA.
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