Public speaking is understood as the creation of monologic spoken texts intended for a broad or narrow audience. In this master's thesis, we researched how final-year students of Classroom Teaching at the Faculty of Education in Ljubljana self-assess their competence for public speaking in standard language during lessons. The goal of the research was to determine which previous experiences help students succeed in public speaking, how competently they self-assess their ability for public speaking in standard language during lessons, which skills or competencies they lack, what their strengths and weaknesses in speech are, which public speaking competencies could further be improved and how, what kind of feedback (and from whom) they received during their studies, how satisfied students are with the preparation for public speaking as part of the courses at the Faculty of Education, and which additional training and education they desire.
In the empirical part, we conducted a survey with participation from 10 male and 96 female students. We found that experiences of public speaking from primary and secondary school were the most beneficial for the respondents. Final-year students rate themselves as quite competent for public speaking in standard language during lessons, and there are no statistically significant differences between male and female in their self-assessment. We also discovered that the students lack knowledge about the proper methods of developing a topic and about the characteristics of spoken language (including the appropriate choice of social and functional language registers, grammatical accuracy, and proper pronunciation). Their strong area in public speaking is confident and fluent speaking, as well as effective eye contact with the audience, while their weak area is the non-use of standard literary language in speech and the frequent use of fillers. The students expressed a desire to improve their competence in understanding the features of spoken language and they believe that more practical exercises and additional training would enhance their skills. During their studies, the students mostly received feedback on their public speaking from university professors and from mentors during their teaching practice. The feedback was considered useful, as they were able to apply it in practice and improve accordingly. We also found that the students are satisfied with the preparation for public speaking within the courses at the Faculty of Education, with no statistically significant differences in satisfaction between genders. Additionally, our research also revealed that the students would welcome further training and education, specifically a vocal cord examination by a phoniatrician and individual guidance for correct pronunciation.
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