With semester exams approaching, COM 101 students will be presenting speeches outside the classroom.

“It’s a speech that is going to challenge students,” COM 101 teacher Henry Evans said. “Going beyond their comfort level to present a speech not in the same classroom, in front of the same people during the same period, or the same podium that they’ve been doing all semester long. It’s a challenge that I believe will result in an academically rigorous culminating experience for students.”

In order to simulate more realistic conditions, students must find their own venues to give speeches. They will record themselves at their place of choice with an audience of at least eight people to earn their final grade.

“I know that I can go speak at my church because I’m pretty close to the ‘higher ups,’” senior Isabella Villarosa said. “The thing is, with it being like that, I might have to focus my speech on something religious. Maybe a type of preaching, sermon, or maybe even share a poem. We can choose a topic and type of speech so it’s all about presentation.”

Students also have the option to participate in a Speech and Debate tournament or speak at a Student Organizational Team meeting.

“I chose the speech and debate tournament because I personally don’t have anywhere outside of school to go and participating in the tournament gives me the best chance at getting a 100,” junior Angelina Bosuwan said. “ I think it’ll be fun though because I’m doing extemp and coming up with my speech on the fly. I’m really good at coming up with speeches so I thought I might as well go for it and that way I don’t have to prepare beforehand.”

Either option will require students to build upon the skills they’ve built over the semester and apply them.

“Students become more comfortable and more complacent when they have to deliver a speech in the same place every single time,” Evans said. “By forcing students to get out of that environment in which they become comfortable, it forces students to almost restart this semester. That first day of speeches where students were nervous and they weren’t sure how it was going to go.”

By pushing his students, Evans hopes to prepare his students for the real world.

“Speeches are a staple, and students are gonna have to do this in college, in their careers and they’re likely going to have to give speeches in a variety of different places,” Evans said. “This final exam is really meant to condition students to be prepared for what students are going to experience once they graduate. I really wanted to emphasize with the final exam, the fact that most of the speeches you’re gonna deliver aren’t in one place, but are going to be in different places in front of different people.”