From Being a Trainee to Being a Trainer: Helping Peers Improve their Public Speaking Skills

Although public speaking anxiety is present at all educational stages, the university period is critical since the students’ lack of oral communication skills may prevent them from accomplishing their educational goals. To improve this situation, a two-fold objective was pursued in this study. First, to examine the effects of a 3-hour public speaking training workshop for Psychology undergraduates. Second, to test if these students could effectively train other undergraduates to use public speaking skills and reduce their anxiety by using a collaborative methodology and peer tutoring. The findings prove that the training of Psychology students resulted in their peers’ improvement of their oral communication skills and reduction of their speech anxiety. Both groups of students benefited from the study: Psychology students had the opportunity to improve their communication skills and gained practical experience, and the other undergraduates received a free, personalized and successful workshop which improved their communication skills and reduced their anxiety levels.