אורנים דוט קום – מגזין האינטרנט של מכללת אורנים

Noiya Gal-Sharai

In the syllabus of our "Rhetorical Skills" course, Nancy wrote that "Teaching is a communicative profession". Owing to each one of our courses, we improve our communication skills on a daily basis. In order to teach English one needs to know not only the rules of the language, but also how to teach them in the most interesting way possible.

"Rhetorical Skills" is a course where we strive to improve our communicative competence. In our first semester we read and analyzed famous American speeches and in doing so, improved our own confidence when reading in front of a class in English. Since Passover we have focused on reading scenes, which we will present to you all in a moment.

In preparation for the Readers Theatre, a momentous event indeed, we each chose, with Nancy's help, a scene that we found interesting and began practicing. The process was long and arduous to successfully prepare for the day but after receiving many complements on our performances we know that our efforts have been worthwhile.During the course we studied several memorable speeches by prominent Americans, such as Abraham Lincoln's "The Gettysburg Address" and Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream". Through these texts we learned how to recognize the different rhetorical appeals a writer or speaker makes in a text in order to better express the message they wish to convey. With that in mind, each member of the class chose and read two memorable texts, taken from plays and public speeches. For example, I read the speech that Emma Watson gave at the U.N. regarding gender equality. Thus, the course has given us the opportunity to enhance both our cultural knowledge and public speaking abilities.

Photos: Prof. Danielle Schaub