Cecille Slish

Toastmasters: A Great Example of Adult Learning (with Infographic)

July 9, 2018

 

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In 2013, I joined Toastmasters because I wanted to become better at speaking off-the-cuff. I was fine if I was speaking off of a script or curriculum, but if someone wanted to ask my opinion about something my mind would go in a thousand different directions and I had a difficult time articulating what I wanted to say.

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I think the Toastmasters educational program is a great application of adult learning principles:

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1. Adults are most interested in learning subjects that have immediate relevance and impact to their job or personal life. Everyone that becomes a Toastmaster joins because they want to improve something about themselves. Maybe it’s so they can communicate better in an impromptu way. Maybe they want to be able to speak in a way that inspires people. Maybe it’s because they want to learn how to be better at listening and giving feedback. All of these reasons have immediate relevance and impact to their job or personal life.

2. Adults need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their instruction. There is structure to the Toastmasters program, but the member has complete control over how aggressively or slowly they pursue their communication and leadership goals. Some people want to move quickly because they’re in line for a promotion, but others may want to progress more gradually because they have a crippling fear of speaking in front of people.

3. Experience (including mistakes) provides the basis for the learning activities. There is no instructor at a Toastmasters club meeting. Everyone receives their curriculum material, and the club is a safe environment in which to learn: it’s a learn-by-doing laboratory where everyone fine-tunes their communication and leadership abilities at their own pace. Every year new club officers are elected, and those officers are responsible for the continuing health of the club. This allows members to try different leadership approaches which they can apply to their professional careers.

4. Adult learning is problem-centered rather than content-oriented. The speech projects in Toastmasters are all designed to prepare its members for challenging situations that can happen in the real world. I remember one of the more difficult speech projects I had was a project called “Speaking Under Fire.” I represented a fictional company that was addressing a public relations disaster, and the other members of my club were supposed to act like reporters, bombarding me with questions. The purpose of the project was for me to learn to handle answering difficult questions in a clear, confident way. I still get sweaty palms thinking about it now :-). My other club members asked tough questions but because it was a supportive environment, I felt safe enough to get out of my comfort zone.

 

If you're curious to see what a Toastmasters project looks like, here's a link to the first project you'll tackle when you join Toastmasters: The Ice Breaker.

I’m also attaching an infographic that illustrates how Toastmasters is a combination of formal and informal learning. I used GrowthEngineering.co.uk’s Formal vs. Informal Learning graphic as a jumping off point, made the formal and informal elements a continuum, then I placed the Toastmasters logo where I thought it fell on that continuum.