Methods & strategies: Speaking with passion The importance of passion Imagine meeting an interesting person at a party that you happen to share a common interest with (e.g. horse riding, French movies, baking, a particular hip-hop artist, …). It will probably be really easy for you to talk to this person, and within minutes you will be deep in conversation with them. The more passionate you are about the topic of conversation, the more fun and satisfying it will be to talk about it. It is exactly this attitude and this approach that you should try to adopt when you talk at the Matura. Now you may say, “But I don’t feel passionate about every one of our Matura topics.” Fair enough. However, try to be as passionate as possible about it. Here are two important truths: 1 It’s possible to be passionate about everything and anything. There are people who are passionate about taxes, or about spelling, or about insurance contracts, or about curling. 2 The more you know about something, the more interesting it becomes. No exceptions. Most topics have at least one aspect that’s interesting. Take taxes, for example: Should everyone pay the same percentage of taxes (e.g. 15% of their gross income)? Or should rich people pay a higher percentage, because they have more money than they need anyway? Or a lower percentage, because that policy will create an incentive for people to try and get rich, which is good for a competitive economy? Those are interesting questions, and if people start discussing them, arguments can get surprisingly heated. Or spelling: Nobody will ever be arrested by the police for misspelling a word. The only people who really have a problem with spelling mistakes are teachers. So why shouldn’t everyone simply spell things the way they want? Would that lead to more freedom? Also, why are some things spelled so weirdly, such as “indict” or “conscience” or “Connecticut” or even simple words like “enough”? Wouldn’t it make more sense to spell them “indite,” “con-shunce,” “Connetticut” and “enuff”? The more you look at and think about the topics you are studying, the more interesting they will become. If you have studied them a lot and you still do not feel passionate about them, there is a tolerable alternative. You can act as though you do. The oral exam is an act. It’s a performance. You are playing a role. Try to enjoy it. It is possible. Speaking passionately ■■ Think of a subject – any subject! – you are very interested in and feel passionate about. ■■ Talk about this subject for 20 to 30 seconds. ■■ Do it a second time. ■■ Then take three to five sentences from your little presentation and replace the nouns (and perhaps also verbs) that had to do with your favourite subject with nouns (or verbs) that relate to one of the Matura topics you are not very excited about (yet). ■■ Give the new presentation (the one about your Matura topic), or an abridged version of it, with exactly the same level of intensity and passion as before. It’s okay if the new sentences do not make a whole lot of sense! How-to [A] 0.3 Video: Speaking with passion Everything is interesting To do [A] 0.4 7 Key aspects Strategies Sample task 0 Introduction Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODE3MDE=