Sarcasm..The Most Horrible Way to Teach!

I've seen multiple TikTok accounts that are supposed to teach English but have built their content on sarcasm. They bring up videos of celebrities or regular people and mock the way they use English.

And then we wonder why people feel chained when speaking up in a second language?!

Imagine the number of people watching those TikToks who would be terrified to speak in English so as not to be mocked.

I've met many people who assume their stress is caused by public speaking, while at its core, it is caused by their fear of judgment when using their second language.

People must indeed keep developing, but they will only do so if they speak up, make mistakes, and enhance themselves, especially when learning a new language or such a diverse set of skills as public speaking.

Unfortunately, many facilitators also use sarcasm, assuming that it will teach their trainees public speaking or help them remember not to make those mistakes again! It's nonsense to expect any person to be great at public speaking while you're constantly making them feel bad about themselves, that they are doing it all wrong and should do everything perfectly. They won't and might isolate themselves with their stress and fears even more.

If you know anything about human nature, you'd know that such experiences could not only hinder the progress of any person but could lead to trauma.

At the School Of Public Speaking (SPS) , one of our rules to ensure creating a safe environment for our participants is that we never use any video for an actual speech for a real person as a negative demonstration of public speaking.

Why? Because 1st: We are totally against using people's fragile moments as a learning tool.

2nd: We know how this would affect the participants' perception of themselves when they put themselves in the speaker's place and imagine being a lesson to others one day.

There are plenty of ways to help people learn, but making them feel bad about themselves will never be a good nor a healthy way to achieve that.

Let people be. They will surprise you.