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We began the unit by studying different speeches in class before our English teacher, Mrs Feasey, took us to the Learning Resource Centre (LRC) to complete research for our own speech. We were only given some guidance on what our speeches should be on but the rest was up to us.   I was in an environment where I was surrounded by books.  Are you a fan of books?  I’m not much of a book fan myself which made me think of all the pastimes that contrasted with books.  That’s when the topic of sport popped into my head.  I now had a topic: books versus sports.  I chose this topic because I knew that almost everyone would love one and hate the other.  To add that unique spark to my speech, I thought that maybe It would be a great idea to alter students’ perspectives and show them how they’re both as great as each other.

Our next lesson was also in the LRC so I seized the opportunity to research facts and examples that would support the points that I was going to make in my speech. Doing this would make it more convincing to my audience.

Once everyone had prepared their speeches, we had to perform them to the rest of our class.  This task enabled us to develop our confidence and communication skills whilst giving us the ability to accept our peers’ feedback.  This valuable feedback helped us improve our speeches when we had to rewrite them.

Next, Mrs Feasey selected two students, Reuben and me, to go forward and represent our class in the competition.  We would be up against one or two students from the other eight English classes!  We came back after school and produced some flashcards which we could swiftly scan during the performance.  We also used this time to practise and rehearse our speeches so that they were almost perfect.

Eventually, the prestigious competition day had arrived!  However, because of all the practice and preparation, I didn’t feel nervous or fearful when performing my speech.  When I was announced as the winner of the competition, I felt shocked yet happy.  All the work had paid off.

I learnt from this experience that with practice and preparation, you can achieve anything!

Monique Akinbile 7CB