Stanford National Forensic Institute

Competitive speech is a very powerful activity which teaches students many skills which are in high demand in the contemporary world: public speaking, research skills, writing and logical thinking!  Students in this session will learn the bedrock theories and methods necessary to enter the world of competitive speech.  There will also be an introduction to the major standardized competitive speech events which are offered at high schools around the nation.

The goal of this session is to cover some of the foundational basics which normally require a sizeable portion of time for beginning students during one of our 2-Week Core sessions.  While these are critical skills to learn, the time that's necessary to learn these skills restricts the amount of progress that beginning students can make in our other programs.  After completing this session a student will be prepared to enter any of our subsequent speech sessions at a level beyond novice/beginner and will be prepared to make a more informed choice about which speech event would be the best fit for their interests.  

This program represents a great opportunity for students to try competitive speech and to learn the necessary skills without committing to a particular speech event for multiple weeks.  Students in the 1-Week Introduction to Competitive Speech program are prepared to continue onto the 2-Week Core Individual Program or the 3-Week Individual Events Experience Program immediately after the conclusion of the session.

For students interested in debate events rather than speech events, please see the information on our 1-Week Introduction to Argumentation & Debate program.