【English－Writing】Writing a Speech (Example: Why technology is not always good for us?) (29/4/2013 version)

Writing a Speech 

When we speak, we hope others will listen. While it is the audience's job to be attentive, it is also the speaker's job to make the speech easy to follow and interesting to hear.

To keep the listeners' attention, we can do the following :

1. Use questions. (better to use open ending question)

If I ask you to think of a world without mobile phones, what will come to your mind?

2. Use similes, metaphors and idioms. 

Raising $37 million is not easy. But who says Rome was built in a day? Somebody has to start!

('Rome was not built in a day' is a saying which means that we should not expect to build something great in a short period of time.)

3. Prepare the audience for what we are going to say. To do this, we can use sequence words.

Let's look at three things. Firstly... Secondly...

In a complete speech, you will need to do the following:

1. Greet your audience. (e.g., Good morning, teachers and fellow schoolmates.)

2. Introduce yourself and what you are going to talk about. Start with your name and class if necessary. (e.g., I am Sam Tse of Class 2D. Have you heard of space travel? Today, I am going to tell you what I think about it.)

3. Talk about what you want to say.(e.g., Technology has advanced so much that space travel will be common soon. Let's look at three examples...)

4. End your speech by summarizing what you have said or expressing your wish / belief. (e.g., I believe that in the near future, we can all travel in the galaxy.)

5. Let your audience know that your speech has come to an end. (e.g., Thank you.)

Example:

Good morning, teachers and fellow classmates,

I am Ken Lo of Class 2D. Why is technology not always good for us? Today, I am going to tell you what I think about it.

Before I talk about this topic, I have one question to ask you. If the technology continues to progress, what do you think will happen in the future?

Although technology has many advantages for us, sometimes in the future, technology may cause many disadvantages.

Firstly, if technology is used in war, it really can destroy our world. I remember that I read a book before, it said, ‘our world will be destroyed because humans have a clever brain.’ But why it says humans have a clever brain and what is the relationship between our brain and the world? It is because we know how to make the technology and technology may destroy the world. Let’s look at these examples, we always use these weapons in the war such as bombs, nuclear and missiles. These weapons are really powerful and enough for killing anyone, even destroying the world.

Secondly, if we always use technology in our daily life, we may cause many health problems. When we use computer or mobile phone for a long time, we will lack exercise. Therefore, our health becomes poorer and we may become overweight. Also, we may get short-sightedness.

Thirdly, if we always use technology to help us, we may dependent on technology. Let’s look at these examples, we always use computer to help us to do the record, our memory may become poorer. We always use calculators to help us to calculate, we may be terrible at doing math in our brain. We always use apps such as ‘WhatsApp’ to chat with our friends, we may not want to chat face to face with our friends.

I believe that in the future, if the technology continues to progress, humans finally may be ‘controlled by technology’. So technology is not always good for us. Thank you.