Public speaking is understood as monological discourse production, directed at a wider or
narrower public or group of people. The theoretical part of this article introduces the characteristics
of effective public speaking; criteria were designed for the preparation of a public
speech, and four main sections defined, i.e. a) construction of public speech (consideration of
text type characteristics, appropriateness of the topic and selection of content, appropriateness
of the mode of topic development, formation of a meaningful, comprehensible and integrated
text); b) integral mode of public speech (fluent, natural and free speaking, clear diction); c)
verbal language (social genre, selection of words consistent with the speech, grammatical correctness,
correct pronunciation, formal constructions, formal [dynamic] accent), non-verbal
language (auditory non-verbal speech cues, visual non-verbal speech cues). The fulfilment of
these criteria was tested in practice, namely on second and third year undergraduate students
(prospective teachers) (N = 211). On the whole, all the average marks of third year students
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were better than those of the second year students. The most common difficulty facing the students
was fluent, natural and free speaking as well as appropriate topic development, whereas
the most successfully fulfilled criteria were those of appropriate topic selection and consideration
of text type characteristics.
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