Words A.L.I.V.E. (ICC Chapter Malaysia): September 2016

Written by Toh Jern Yoong
Edited by Charis Chen and Ranen Chan.

Welcome to our Words ALIVE ICC meeting. It was a beautiful afternoon on the 21st of August 2016. Since we were approaching Malaysia's National Day, I invited everyone to their feet to sing our national anthem, 'Negaraku" as a way to ignite the patriotic sentiment toward our country.

The first part of the meeting was led by Ranen, who brought us our spiritual food! We looked at the Beatitudes from Matthew 5:3, where we discovered that 'being poor in spirit' meant humbling ourselves before God, and listening and following His ways. We learned that people who were poor in spirit would be blessed, as God wanted us to be humble and meek. We were also reminded to be Christ's ambassadors in this world.

After the spiritual nourishment, Ian led us in a fun icebreaker. We were divided into pairs- one speaker with one coach. Each speaker had to share about something he/she liked (e.g. favourite food, pastime, sport, etc.), while the coach had to share about something he/she liked when he/she was the speaker's age. It was a breeze for the speakers but it was slightly challenging for the coaches as they had to recall highlights of their lives from some twenty to thirty years ago. It was indeed a very cultural communication-emphasizing ice-breaker!

Moving on, we had a word of inspiration from our sponsor, Coach Joseph Tan!

He spoke about how we should be open to learning new things and going all out to seek for knowledge. He also gave some life examples, which really motivated us to not be as afraid as he once was, and that it is alright to make mistakes. He shared that, "If we make mistakes, we must learn to laugh it off and learn from it.”

Following the session of powerful advice from our Chapter Sponsor, the YSGers and the YCCers broke into their respective groups for YCC and YSG Skills Teaching.

YCC Skills Session Report by Speaker Jern Ling

After settling the YCCers down, Speaker Charis and I started by asking them ‘Why is it important to learn public speaking?’ We further discussed about enunciation and how they should learn to speak clearly without mumbling. We let them practice enunciation with ‘Loud and Clear Cards’ activities. After a few exciting activities, we moved on to some challenging Tongue Twisters.

YSG Skills Session

During the YSG teaching session, Eunice and I reviewed the key points for public speaking, such as eye contact, inflection, enunciation, projection, and the three-second rule.

Photo by Ranen Chan

We learnt that we need to always be properly dressed for a platform, and that it is important to be 'on deck' before we speak. This means to be ready on stage just before our turn.

We also learnt how to handle a microphone properly.