At Benny Chia's invitation, I'm back again to participate in The Effective Speakers workshop (July 20-21, 2024) as one of sixteen facilitators. Our primary task is to introduce public speaking to students enrolled in Sunway TES at Sunway College, Bandar Sunway.
I also conducted a twenty-minute presentation on Storytelling. [I prefer to call it Narrative Communication]. After all, we should know that humans are wired on stories.
In a speech, the story is kept short and simple:
The feature – what you did
The function – how you did it
The benefit – what this means to the audience
It's worth mentioning that Carmine Gallo, in his book. The Storyteller's Secret, argues that the great ideas that catch on are those that are wrapped in stories designed to inform, engage, and inspire.
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I had nine Zoomers under my charge – they're in Group 5 and they called themselves "Diamonds".
Thanks to Benny Chia, the Organizing Chair, I was invited to participate in the Sunway TES The Effective Speakers Program at Sunway College on Saturday and Sunday.
I did a 20-minute presentation “Crafting a Speech” as well as coached a group of ten Peneraju scholars.
Everyone in my group were given the opportunity to deliver four speeches – and I daresay, they have indeed grasped the basics of public speaking in just one-and-a-half days. I had relied on the 5 T's Framework (Chapter 4 of my book "The Diamond in Your Speech") to facilitate/accelerate their learning.
Hooray! We've collected another 3 videos for World Speech Day Culture – and these 3 are all from Malaysia.
Anabelle Teh talks about her favorite Malaysian food, i.e. nasi lemak, roti canai and nian gao 年糕 (kuih bakul).
Nasi lemak is actually rice cooked in coconut milk that is traditionally served with anchovies, cucumbers, peanuts and boiled eggs, and served together with a spicy chili paste called sambal. It is considered Malaysia’s national dish.
Roti canai is a type of flatbread, usually served with dhal and/or other curries.
Nian gao is a sticky sweet rice cake eaten during the Chinese New Year. A popular dessert made of glutinous rice flour and sugar.
Nian gao is 年糕 in Chinese. The character 年 means ‘year’, and the character 糕 means ‘cake’, which shares the same pronunciation as 高 (gao), meaning ‘tall’ or ‘high’. So, the pronunciation of nian gao sounds like 'year high' (年高) – and so, nian gao symbolizes a high year, an increase in prosperity.
Lim Chien Cian shares about the Chinese celebration of the winter solstice, Dong Zhi (which means “Winter Arrives”) – it welcomes the return of longer days and the corresponding increase in positive energy in the year to come.
Occurring only six weeks before the Chinese New Year, the festival has its own significance for many Chinese people, and is believed to be the day when everyone gets one year older.
An important and auspicious recipe to make during the Winter Solstice is the tang yuan 汤圆, a traditional dessert made of glutinous rice shaped into balls – often brightly colored – that is served in a hot broth or syrup.
The celebration may have begun as a harvest festival, when farmers and fishermen took time off to celebrate with their families. It’s not an official holiday, but remains an occasion for families to join together to celebrate the year that has passed and share good wishes for the year to come.
Nurul Rafidah features three Bidayuh dishes, ikan bakar, bamboo chicken and kurat sisub.
Ikan bakar is charcoal-grilled fish. The fish is seasoned with a spice marinade, then wrapped in banana leaves before being laid on a hot grill.
Bamboo chicken is, as the name implies, chicken cooked in a bamboo tube.
And kurat sisub is a traditional dish of wild mushrooms, chicken and rice.
Incidentally, all three speakers are students at Sunway.
Today concludes the i-Speak @ Sunway Uni event and indeed, Cyril Jonas & Victor Ong were in awe of the speakers!
The seven semi-finalists:
The finalists:
Thank you to Sunway University's Department of Communication, School of Arts and the Sunway Center for Planetary Health for inviting CV+ to be a part of this program!
