EDUCATION PROGRAM OVERVIEW

General Overview

Our Educational Program has been designed by experienced speakers and people with over 20 years of experience in adult education. It is based on solid, peer-reviewed scientific research about what works and what doesn't in terms of public speaking, persuasion, confidence, charisma, control of nervousness, motivation, and leadership.

It has two main trunks: Communication and Public Speaking skills and a parallel one for Leadership Skills. As you progress through the program, you are granted different certificates of recognition.

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Public Speaking Track

The Public Speaking Track is composed of one mandatory Basic Path and many optional Advanced Paths. It leads you gently from very humble beginnings to more complicated and challenging projects, where you will first speak in front of your fellow club members. From there, proceed to spread your wings outside the nest and speak in front of ever-increasing and wider audiences.

Within each path, there are different projects. Each project has a specific learning objective and goals and is designed to help you acquire and practice specific skills - public speaking or leadership. Most of the Basic Educational Path projects have two parts: one that requires you to do a Speech Analysis and the second one that requires you to deliver a speech using a specific set of techniques. These parts need to be done in different meetings.

Agora Speakers International Speakers Basic Educational Path Public Speaking Track

Once you complete the basic educational path, you unlock access to more specific advanced paths that explore public speaking in special contexts or environments. You can learn to be a storyteller, a business presenter, an educator, or many other options.

We believe that every speaker is unique, so the Educational Program is also designed to help you discover your own style, instead of imposing on you artificial techniques that will only result in your audience perceiving you as unnatural or - even worse - dishonest.

Structure

The Basic Educational Program is divided into two main blocks

The Basic Educational Path, which has three sections:

"The Initial Projects" - A set of easy projects designed to help you make your first steps into the world of public speaking. Furthermore, you will lose the fear of being in front of an audience

"Basics of Speaking" - A set of projects that introduce you to the basic techniques of public speaking, applicable to all kinds of speeches.

"Speaking Techniques" - Projects become more demanding in this section. You will use more advanced techniques such as anecdotes, emotion, humor, etc., that greatly enhance the impact of some types of speeches.

The Advanced Education Paths - Upon completing the Basic Path, you will "unlock" the advanced education paths. Each advanced path consists of many projects that explore specific speaking techniques, contexts, or environments - such as speaking in business contexts, storytelling, educational speeches, and many others.

Progress along the advanced paths can be paused and resumed at any time. Here you will find some of the most advanced but also most gratifying projects. You will have to speak in front of other organizations, engage in actual leadership campaigns, and do a lot of work outside of your home club, in the real world hence in uncontrolled environments. The Advanced Education Paths are designed to help you "fly on your own" away from the nest.

The documentation of each project is available online.

All projects follow a similar template, detailing goals, timings, what may and may not be used, how to evaluate the project, tips, and suggestions, etc.

You progress at your own pace, and you advance only when you feel comfortable. You can even repeat projects or go back to revisit old ones. There's no mandatory speed, and there's no stipulated time for completing any phase or project, although you should try to finish the Basic Educational Path in no more than a year.

Leadership Track

The Leadership track follows the same hands-on approach as the communications track by taking you from humble beginnings, such as taking the lead in specific activities in your club to much more ambitious goals that impact your community at large.

You will notice that the Communication Track doesn't require any leadership tasks: you can be a professional and very successful (and highly paid) public speaker without ever having to deal with any leadership activities. However, the Leadership Track is different: leaders need to have extensive technical knowledge and skills and top-notch public speaking abilities.