Ricardo-María Jiménez, Professor at the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya and partner of the project 'Public discourse' del Institute for Culture and Society
Speaking as "gods
In the Odyssey, the goddess Athena suggests to Telemachus that he overcome his shame and ask Nestor about his father Ulysses. The young man replies that he has no experience in proper dialogue and is embarrassed to ask a man older than himself. Our university students are often assailed by the same feelings of fear and embarrassment.
Some express themselves brilliantly; however, many others tremble before an oral exhibition as if they had to face Polyphemus himself. These feelings are the consequence of a system educational that does not teach how to express oneself orally in an interview or speech. There have even been editorials in the press worrying about topic ("Vigencia de la oratoria", La Vanguardia, 21/V/2013).
We are told that these students will be more valued in the professional world if they express themselves orally correctly. Perhaps that is why discussion clubs and public speaking courses have proliferated in universities in recent years. If students start learning oratory skills at the alma mater, we are too late. The university prepares for professional life, but above all "the university is a place for communication and the circulation of thought" (Newman) and not simply an academy that teaches techniques. Oral expression should be taught from childhood.
Salinas said that "there will be no complete human being, who knows himself and makes himself known, without an advanced Degree of possession of his language". This advanced Degree begins to be acquired in elementary school, continues in high school and is completed in college. What proposals can be useful? The theater is an ideal school to express oneself: why not dedicate one hour a week in the curriculum to oral expression? Of course, as long as the issue of students per classroom is reduced in the subjects of language in order to teach more effectively. Another proposal is an oral test -speaking a speech- in the university entrance exams. Or include oratory and rhetoric in the Degree and in the Master's Degree of Education... Athena replied to Telemachus: "Some words you will conceive in your own mind and others will be infused by divinity." Our students will be able to conceive words on their own and perhaps divinity will help them, but they need a system educational that incorporates oral expression as a fundamental skill .