Advanced Communication Programme
This page outlines the Advanced Communication Programme, and lists the 15 manuals to be completed to achieve the Advanced Communicator Award.
The Toastmasters Advanced Communication Programme consists of 15 manuals, each containing five speech projects. Each manual helps members further develop speaking skills and offers practical experience in handling a variety of speaking situations.
You'll learn how to master many situations you may encounter in your daily work, in business with customers and clients, with managers or colleagues, and with people in the community, friends and family.
Timings
Timings in the Advanced Communication Manuals listed below range from 3 to 30 minutes. Some examples are the Special Occasions "Mastering the Toast" speech, 3 minutes, to the Technical Presentations "Team Technical" lasting 30 minutes. Most are usually 5-7, 6-8, or 8-10 minutes. Some include Question and Answer sessions after the speech, or setup, speech, Q&A or feedback from the audience.
Speaking to Inform
The projects in this manual will help you give informative and interesting speeches. Topics covered include the demonstration talk, the fact-finding report, the abstract concept and resources for informing. Ideal for people in the workplace who have to give regular presentations to colleagues and clients. An excellent first manual for the advanced speaker.
Special Occasion Speeches
This manual is for those people who have to give a wedding speech, make a presentation, or a farewell speech. It provides instruction in giving toasts, speaking in praise, "roasting" someone, and presenting and accepting awards. This manual allows you to personalise your speeches and use life stories. An ideal manual to work through early in your advanced speaking career.
Technical Presentations
The projects in this manual will help you prepare and present briefings, proposals, technical papers and technical team presentations. An ideal manual for people in technical roles in the workplace.
Public Relations
This complete guide to preparing and delivering the public relations speeches will help you develop resources and techniques, "speak under fire", and handle the media talk. A wonderful manual for people in customer-facing situations.
Speeches by Management
This practical manual is ideal for those people in a management situation in the workplace, helping you successfully handle a variety of speaking situations. Subjects covered include briefings, technical speeches, motivational talks and confrontations.
Specialty Speeches
Speakers must be able to speak in many situations and this challenging manual will help you. Types of speeches covered include impromptu speeches, sales presentations, introductions, inspirational speeches, and oral interpretations.
Facilitating Discussion
This manual offers guidance in presenting workshop and conference presentations. Role-playing and problem-solving sessions are also covered. This manual is a must for managers, trainers, teachers and administrators.
The Professional Speaker
The Professional Speaker manual is a complete guide to becoming a professional speaker. Subjects covered include speaking as a company representative and speaking for money, something we would all like to do!
The Entertaining Speaker
This manual includes valuable information on how to give an entertaining or dramatic speech, where to find material, how to make an audience laugh, and what to do when you're asked to speak after dinner. A fun manual for you and your audience!
Persuasive Speaking (or The Professional Salesperson)
The ability to influence and persuade others to accept your ideas, products, or services is vital in today's fast-paced world. The projects in this manual are all designed to help you develop excellent persuasive techniques and expand your presentation skills. Ideal for community leaders, managers and salespeople.
Communicating on Television
Television presentations differ from other presentations, and they require special considerations. With this manual you'll learn to present editorials, appear as a guest on a "talk show", conduct a press conference, and use television to train. A fun manual to work through in the club environment. Using a video camera is an ideal way to simulate the television situation. You can then review your performance in privacy, or use the video for club evaluations and training.
Storytelling
This is an enjoyable manual for the advanced speaker, because everyone loves a story. Types of stories covered in this manual include the folk tale, the personal story, stories with morals, the touching story, and the historical story. You'll need to research your material carefully, but the scope is endless!
Interpretive Reading
This manual will help you develop your interpretive reading skills, not something you would do every day! The projects include presenting stories, poetry, monodramas, plays and oratorical speeches. A challenging manual which requires you to source interesting and unusual material.
Interpersonal Communication
Topics covered include conversing with ease, negotiating, handling criticism, coaching someone to improved performance, and expressing dissatisfaction effectively. Another ideal manual for people in the workplace or community. You'll need to involve other people when completing some of the projects in this manual.
Humorously Speaking
Audiences love to laugh! This manual shows you how to use humorous stories and jokes throughout your speech to grab and keep listeners' attention and illustrate your points. You also learn how to give an entirely humorous speech. An excellent manual to try out ideas and practice for the Humorous Speech Contests.
Preparing and Delivering Advanced Speeches
Research and preparation
The advanced speech projects require some in-depth research for facts or ideas; you may need to find poems, plays, stories or jokes, look up the internet, talk to people, analyse reports, summarise issues and find examples to support your points. You'll also need to prepare a variety of visual aids from ohps to supporting objects, handouts and flipcharts, and rehearse their use. This is an opportunity to be creative and innovative, and to try out new ways of doing things!
Challenge your thinking and speaking
In the advanced speech projects, you'll be challenging your thinking and speaking with a variety of assignments, such as speaking in praise of someone, living or dead, proposing an idea or course of action, persuading someone to buy something, presenting a technical paper in non-technical terms.
You'll learn how to tell stories and jokes effectively, analyse a concept or theory and present your interpretation on it, find a suitable literary piece to read, communicate a vision and a mission, and inform your audience about something new.
There's plenty to challenge your thinking and speaking in the advanced manuals, and your topics are limited only by your imagination. You can also use some of the advanced manual projects as dry runs for real life situations you may have coming up, such as a wedding toast, or a presentation to a client.
Different audiences
One of the best things about completing advanced manuals is that you get to deliver your speech to a variety of audiences. You may be in an interview situation, leading a discussion group, enacting a scene or role play with a partner, asking for audience feedback, confronting an audience with a controversial issue, or fielding questions from the audience. You can ask for the audience to adopt a role of your choice to meet the requirements of the speech project by having your speech introduced setting the scene.
You could also be giving a speech about one particular person in the audience (a toast or a roast) or it could be about yourself, where you are "accepting an award".
In-depth Evaluations
By completing advanced speech projects, you'll benefit from in-depth evaluations from other experienced evaluators. Your evaluations will be both written and oral, where you may be rated on a scale, or improvement level. The evaluator will also answer questions such as "Was the speaker able to build rapport with the audience?" "How effective were the jokes?" "How did the visual aids enhance audience understanding of the topic?"
Your evaluator could also try new methods of evaluation, including thorough preparation by prior discussion with you, introducing your speech to set the scene, and leading a group evaluation with the audience.
Action PlanFinding suitable speaking opportunities to complete advanced manual projects can be difficult at times. Here's a few suggestions:
In your Club/Toastmasters, you can give advanced speeches:
- At club meetings
- Speaker exchange with another club
- Giving educationals
- Leading a Speechcraft course
- At club officer training
- At District sponsored training sessions
- Workshops at a Division/District conference
Outside Toastmasters you can
- credit up to two assignments per manual
- You must have your VP Education permission
- You must have a Toastmaster present to evaluate your speech
- Your speech must meet the assignment objectives
ResultsCheck the article "On Your Own: Tips on Speaking Outside the Club" in "The Toastmaster", August 2003, page 21. There's some excellent tips on how to prepare for and present a speech at a non-Toastmasters speaking engagement.
To achieve an Advanced Communicator Award, you need to complete any two manuals per award level (plus some other requirements).
By completing advanced manuals, you will have:
- learnt new skills
- acquired new knowledge
- spoken in a variety of situations
- in front of a variety of audiences
- used many different types of visual aids
- received recognition for your efforts
- opened up new opportunities for your future
- and identified areas you enjoy or excel at
You will also have helped achieve your club's educational goals.
And you'll be better prepared for those unexpected (and planned) real life situations, and be able to draw upon your Toastmasters experience to deliver a dynamic, interesting, interactive presentation.
