Introduction
Is it possible to learn how to become a successful speaker? Can you learn how to write good texts? Can you strengthen your professional and personal credibility? Of course you can. The art of speaking and writing can be learned and rhetoric makes this possible. Rhetoric is the art that the Greeks regarded as fundamental to leadership and to leading people. Everybody can learn to be better speakers; everybody can learn to be better participants in conversations; everybody can learn to write persuasively and effectively. Rhetoric helps you convince your audience to accept a point of view or a message. Speech and writing need to be adjusted to the sender and the audience, the issue and the argumentation, to time and place; to what is called the rhetorical situation. The better these elements are coordinated, the better the rhetorical effect.
Course content
Day 1. What is rhetoric?
- To persuade, raise interest, demonstrate understanding, result in action
- The production of verbal messages and credible texts
- Analyzes, interprets, constructs, evaluates, critiques
- Takes a holistic perspective
Skills: Outlining a speech text for oral presentation; practicing oral presentations
Day 2. Ethos: Credibility competence, character, goodwill
- The credibility of the speaker
- Authority, authenticity, trust
- Personal and professional ethos
Skills: Constructing writer/reader roles; developing tone of voice, training body language
Day 3. Pathos: Feelings, appeals and persuasion
- The impact of text and speech on readers and audience
- Involvement, commitment, identification
Skills: Writing second drafts based on feedback; accommodating language, style, tone of voice to audience
Day 4. Logos: Argumentation, thesis and arguments
- Diction, argumentation fact and reason
- The good argument
- Argumentation and positioning
Skills: Developing a thesis, finding good arguments, working on coherence for speech and text
Day 5. Speech and body language.
- From text to speech. Theory and practice
- Body language. Individual training and exercises
- Oral delivery: exercises
Skills: Oral delivery
Day 6. Evaluation: Speech delivery or oral presentation