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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

University of Social Sciences and Humanities

Lâm Đức Chí

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Part 1: Introduction to public speaking

Part 2: Public speaking topics

Topic 1: What is a useful skill your mother or father taught you? Describe the skill and how

you were taught this skill?

Topic 2: Difficult experiences can be valuable learning experiences. What was a difficult

experience you went through? What did you learn from this experience essay?

Topic 3: Some movies are made just do entertain audiences, while others are meant to

make audiences think about certain issues. Which type or movie do you prefer? Describe a

movie you saw that represents your preferred type of movie. Give specific reasons for your

ideas.

Topic 4: Imagine that you have a machine and can take one trip through time. Would you

visit the past or the future? Explain your choice. Include details and examples in your

explanation.

Topic 5: Some people believe that students should immediately go on to college after

completing high school. Other believes that students should take a year or more off between

high school and college. Which approach do you think is better for students interested in

getting a college degree? Include details and examples in your explanation.

CONTENTS

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Part 1

Introduction to public speaking

What is Public Speech?

Public speech is the way to talk in front of a group of people (It can be in front of people that

you know or a crowd of strangers) in a structured and with preparation at a specific time and

place. A speech is only one-sided, a person gives a speech and others listen, Speakers generally

have time limits, and Listeners do not interrupt.

The purpose of public speech can be simply transmitting information to the others, to motivating

people to act, to telling a story. Speakers may want to explain an idea or process, share some new

information, to show how to do something, or a speaker want to persuade an audience, they want

them to adopt a new position or belief, to change their minds.

What is Interpersonal Conversation

Interpersonal Conversation is the sending and receiving of information between two or more

people. It is as the process that we use to communicate our ideas, thoughts, and feelings to

another person. A conversation is at least, two-sided. More than one person speaks.

The purpose of communication is to reach a common understanding, build a better relationship

with the others through communication.

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What are differences between a public speech and an interpersonal conversation?

Public Speech is more highly structured than interpersonal conversation. Public speech

requires detail planning and preparation. Normally, a public speaker organizes his or her

thoughts in a speech by using three basic structural elements: an introduction, a body, and

a conclusion. All information is organized, planned, prepared, and researched.

However, interpersonal conversations don’t need detail planning and preparation. It can wander

and meander without ever coming to a point.

Public speech is more formal than conversation. The slang or casual language we often use in

conversation is usually not appropriate for most public speech. Audiences expect speakers to use

Standard English grammar and vocabulary. The nonverbal communication of public speakers is

also more formal than the nonverbal behaviour of interpersonal conversation

Public speech requires different delivery. A public speaker must speak loudly enough to be

heard by everyone, and speak slowly enough so that the audience can easily take in the ideas.

Public speech is often organized into events and places with a certain time and location.

However, an interpersonal conversation can spring up anywhere. Interpersonal conversations

also can be as brief or as long as those involved are willing to participate.

In conclusion，public speech is definitely different from interpersonal conversation. We can

recognize it with 3 main points: high structure, more formal language, requiring different

delivery.

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Part 2

Topic 1

What is a useful skill your mother or father taught you? Describe the skill and how you

were taught this skill?

What is a useful skill your parents taught you? Do

you still remember at this moment? There are many

skills I have learned from my parents when I was a

child, and I never still forget when I grow up.

Following now, I’m going to share a few lessons

learned by me from my parents, from their actions:

First of all, is from my mother, she taught how to reduce wastage. She taught not only me, but

my entire family not to waste anything - food, electricity, water, etc. Buy only what is necessary

and do not overload the house with anything extra. In addition, she always taught me that money

is not everything in life: Life is not all about money making. There are things worth more than

that! Do not run behind money is one thing I saw her practice. Moreover, she taught me that I

should never tell a lie to someone so that can made them hurt.

Come to second is my father, he taught me that I should read a lot of books to improve my

knowledge, reading books are the best hobby and I learned that from him. He narrated a lot of

stories that he had read which help my current Job a lot of. He also taught me how to be a good

listener, he usually spent his time to listen and discuss what I had to say so that made me feel

comfortable to talk with him like a friend.

In conclusion, I am indeed proud and lucky to have got such parents! And I am just hoping my

kids would feel the same about me in the future!

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Topic 2

Difficult experiences can be valuable learning experiences. What was a difficult experience

you went through? What did you learn from this experience essay?

Nobody can avoid difficult experiences in their

lives. Some people say that they should forget

these experiences because they are useless to

them. On the other hand, others think that these

experiences become valuable lessons for future

so that we should remember them. In my

opinion, I also believe that difficult experiences

become valuable lessons because of three

following reasons.

For the first reason, the experience of solving or

dealing with a difficult problem helps me know

how to avoid failure or risk in future. For example, I have lost my motorbike because I was so

careless that I parked my motorbike in the garden without locking it. This experience teaches me

always watch out in every case.

Furthermore, I become more respect my current life when I experience after having fixed a

certain difficulty. For instance, I used to smoke and drink so much. Then, I suffered liver disease.

I experienced a long time in hospital. At that time, I was so painful that I swore I would never

drink and smoke again. After recovery I respect my life more and work harder to bring happiness

to my family.

Finally, I become more confident after going

through a difficult experience. I once thought

that I could not learn French because I

encountered so many difficulties when

studying it. Fortunately, my friends and

brothers encouraged me many times. Since I

learned successfully skills of this language, I

feel more confident to face other difficulties.

In summary, most difficult experiences become valuable lessons for future since we can know

how to avoid risk, more respect our lives and become more confident after each of these ones. I

hope that more and more people will realize that learning a lesson from a difficulty is important.

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Topic 3

Some movies are made just do entertain audiences, while others are meant to make

audiences think about certain issues. Which type or movie do you prefer? Describe a movie

you saw that represents your preferred type of movie. Give specific reasons for your ideas.

Some movies are serious, designed to make the audience think.

Other movies are designed primarily to amuse and entertain.

Which type of movie do you prefer?

Some people like funny movies because they can forget their

problems and worries during watching these films. Others

prefer to watch some serious movies. There are some

advantages and disadvantages of both type of movie, but in my opinion, serious movies are

preferable to movies that are designed primarily to amuse and entertain. In the following essay, I

will explain my choice.

First of all, movies, designed to make you think, are able to open your eyes about some

problems on earth. For example, I watched the film “City of God” some years ago. The movie

deals intensively with the problems of young South Americans living in slums. This film

helps helped me to realize that I must be very happy to live in a country in which crime, violence

or drugs are not normal and that this circumstance gives you the responsibility for helping others.

As a consequence, after I watched this film I became a member of amnesty international.

Therefore, I think that a good serious film is able to open your eyes about some problems in the

world.

Secondly, you can learn a lot of things watching serious movies. For instance, if you watch some

documentaries about a country, you will learn a lot about the culture and the inhabitants of this

country. Moreover, documentaries help you to improve your knowledge and level of education,

which will help you to be successful in school or study.

Finally, I believe that serious movies improve communications between friends and family. In

my experiences, people discuss more about a serious movie than they do about a funny movie

due to the fact serious movies are more complex than movies that are designed to entertain.

Hence, people want to talk about the film they have watched, because they have some question

about the sophisticated plot of the film.

In conclusion, I prefer watching a serious movie more than seeing a funny movie. Serious

movies have the capability of changing opinions of people and therefore they are able to make

the world to a better place.

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Topic 4

Imagine that you have a machine and can take one trip through time. Would you visit the

past or the future? Explain your choice. Include details and examples in your explanation.

When I was a child, I often dreamed about if I had had a time machine so that I could have gone

back to the moment I was making a mistake and changed it.

As I grew older, my life experience gradually became more diverse. I understand that mistakes

are inevitable (unavoidable), but they allow us to learn, develop ourselves, motivate us to change

for the better in the future. Although there were some things went wrong in the past, but I've no

regret and still don't want to change it because I think that: “our mistakes make us what we are

today, and the mistakes also cannot be changed, but we can learn from them”. The past should be

left in the past, so don’t look back with regret, look forward to the future with hope because we

can't change the past, but we can make the future. In my opinions, if I have a time machine, I

would visit the future for some reasons below:

The main reason I’d rather to visit the future than the past, because I really want to know

what's going to happen to me in the future.

Travelling to the future I can see where my life has led me. If it's not the way I wanted, I can

know where I went wrong, what the mistakes I have made, and then I can go back to present day

and try to change it before it becomes a reality. If my life has gone well, I can learn from it and

speed up the process to get to that state. For example, if I go to the future 10 years ahead of me. I

will meet a more mature and experienced version of myself. He can tell me what I should do to

get more achievement or he will let me know how I can manage when the things go wrong. He

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also will advise me doing some things which will help me in the future. And I am certain that he

will only lead me to a better future.

Besides the main reason, I’m going to tell you another reason I would like to visit the future

than the past because I wanted to become a billionaire in an easy way.

If I had a time machine, I would travel forward to the future and find out the lottery numbers for

the whole of that year, then travel backward in time and continually win the lottery all year long.

By this way I would have billions and would never have to work again, I'll be a billionaire.

The final reason I would like to visit the future than past because I wanted to satisfy my

curiosity.

Have you ever wondered what the future world will be? I wanted to see whether the future will

be the modern life with high technology and everything will be done by Robot, or the space

travel will be the common entertainment for human. I also wanted to know whether the terminal

disease of cancer could be able to cure in the future. Moreover, does the human need to go to

another planet for living because of the end of the earth…etc.

In conclusion, I believe that visiting the future would be more interesting to me than visiting the

past and seeing what has happened already, due to past events are always available for your

reading from history books. Sure, if I have to choose, I'd rather view what's coming than what's

already occurred.

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Topic 5

Some people believe that students should immediately go on to college after completing

high school. Other believes that students should take a year or more off between high

school and college. Which approach do you think is better for students interested in getting

a college degree? Include details and examples in your explanation.

It is quite popular these days for students in many countries to have a break after graduating from

high school, it's commonly known as a gap year. After high school, Some students immediately

go on to the university while other students take a year break to travel and explore different

countries or they may take up some job to gain experience. In my opinion, both of these have

clearly advantages and disadvantages for students who decide to do this, but I believe that it’s

more disadvantages than if students don’t go straight to university after completing high school.

There are some important reasons I would like to present below.

The first drawback is that students often forget some essential knowledge they've learned in high

school such as physics and mathematics which is usually needed in the examinations to go to

university. Most of students who attend university right after high school retain a lot of what

they've learned in the past years. However, students who take a break after finishing high school

will forget all things of what they've learned in school after the break time end up, and then they

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have a hard time to review the majors they have learned in high school before they can get back

to university.

Another danger of taking a gap year is that students might not want to return to the university.

They may find difficult to re-adapt to a student life after a year off. Besides, students may lose

their interest in study; some students would think that completed the university education is not

really necessarily as long as the money is available. So they may decide that it is better to

continue in a particular job for earning money than going back to the university.

Finally, the students who take a year off need to spend a longer time finishing university than the

students who have chosen to go straight to the university after high school. It’s mean they have

to take an extra years just to earn a degree. Delaying to study in the university can also delay the

start of career, and students could find that starting their future becomes more difficult as they

get older.

In conclusion, I believe that going straight to the university can be the best choice for students

after completed high school, and there is no reason to postpone for studying in university. Some

things such as relaxing, traveling or working can be done any time after graduation of university.

The gap year between high school and university is something that seems to offer so much. But

in reality, it can do more hurt than good.

End