The Use of Palm Cards

The Plague of Palm Cards

Whenever our students are called upon to present an oral, the burning issue of notes and palm cards arises. Questions such as: “How many cards are we allowed?”, “How many words on each palm card?” are ever present. What I would like to propose is a solution. It may seem somewhat radical but I encourage you to try it in your schools. I am proposing that you ban Palm Cards and use only Speech Notes.
Palm cards tend to create a number of bad habits:
1. ‘The Noddy Syndrome’ where the student looks up and own constantly to check the next group of words.
2. ‘The Five Card Shuffle’. All speakers tend to remember more than they believe so that when they need to find their place it is somewhere on the fifth card. To get to that next piece of information requires a shuffle and looks poor.
3. ‘The Overseas Traveller problem. When someone goes overseas for the first time they always take four times as many clothes as needed. So it is for speakers. They always take in far too many cards because they are not sure which parts they will need to remember so let’s take them all.
4. Gestures. Palm Cards make the open palm gesture difficult without being too obvious to the audience
Of course Palm Cards are valuable and useful in Debating but elsewhere in our society they are rarely or never used. Presentations in the ‘real’ world use a full script or speech notes. So if we are preparing our students for real-life experiences we need to offer them chances to practise.

Hints on Speech Notes
• Teach the use of Speech Notes in the first year of secondary school. Your students may struggle somewhat in their early presentations but they will eventually master the skill and become better speakers.
• Speech Notes need to be at least 30 FONT size. This enables the speaker to place the notes on a desk and stand back far enough to glance at them without obviously relying on a close reading.
• Speech Notes can be grouped into boxes and colour coded. This makes it easier to find your place when needed.
• Speech Notes can be of different types. You can have a page with words developed in a linear fashion. You can have symbols and images if these help to remind the speaker of key ideas. You can have a mind map approach where examples branch out from a central stem.
If you would like an EXAMPLE of these from our CDRom email Adrian at Adrian@ryanand associates.com.au
• Speech Notes should be used when practising your speech. Practice needs to happen by saying it aloud and standing up. This replicates as close as possible the presentation format.
• Break the speech into ‘chunks’ and have your students learn the speech in ‘chunks’. I often stand my class around the room and ask them to say their opening to the wall and then their conclusion. Then I vary the parts I want them to practise. By learning the speech in chunks, you avoid the problem of students having their minds go blank. They can merely move on to the next chunk without their audience knowing.
• Accept Speech Notes from students rather than full transcript. There is no requirement to hand in a full text. However this doesn’t mean students shouldn’t go through the process where their speech is written out and then converted to Speech Notes. A full text enables you the teacher to ask questions such as: “What devices such as alliteration and triplet have you used?”
• One A4 page is probably sufficient for a 3-5min presentation. Use only one side of the page
• Students must write ONLY words or phrases as their Speech Notes. If they write a full sentence they will be tempted to read the sentence. This lessens eye contact with the audience and diminishes the overall impact of the speech.
So in conclusion, the less need to refer to any notes, the more effective the presentation will be. I encourage you to try some of the Hints mentioned. In my experience our students develop good speaking skills by starting from Year Eight and being asked to use only Speech Notes.