A speech choir is a performing ensemble that recites speeches and poetry aloud, sometimes including movement and costume to assist the literary works come to life. It is a powerful art that is experiencing a revival and operates like a music choir minus the music. There are two types of speech choir: conventional or traditional speech choir, which is performed without or with very minimal props and costumes, and no choreography, and dynamic or theatrical speech choir, which is accompanied with props and costumes or even choreography. The power of speech choir heavily lies on the voices of the performers.
Speech choir is a popular teaching tool that helps to improve childrens oral skills such as pitch, tone, volume, pace, diction, and enunciation. It also helps children to work as a team towards a common goal and develop confidence. Teachers are trained on the use of speech choir as an instructional strategy and equipped with skills to carry out lessons using speech choir.
The speech choir experience involves several steps, including familiarizing children with the text, getting teachers ready, and choreographing the performance. Involving children in the choreography process helps them to feel a greater sense of ownership in their performance. Parents can also be invited to make props for the speech choir performance with their children at home, which can facilitate parent-child bonding.
Speech choir can also be used as a sustainable model to provide students with a regularly recurring genuine audience experience. It combines talents of the students in one performance and has elements of forensics, readers theater, choral reading, public speaking, and more. The speech choir concept allows audiences to better grasp some forms of literature such as Biblical texts or abstract prose and poetry by breaking the readings into multiple voices.
In conducting a speech choir, it is important to start with the end in mind and work backwards, instruct the group on proper pronunciation, and explain the purpose of the performance to the participants. It is also important to choose the right literary piece, divide the group into sections based on their natural voices or speaking voices, and practice regularly.