Reviving Rhetoric in English Language Teaching*

This paper is based on the author’s experience in undertaking a workshop class on Rhetoric in Business Communication. Awareness of the role of rhetoric is envisaged to develop the students’ English competence by enabling them to grasp the principles of speechmaking and their various types such as speech to inform, speech to persuade, and speech to activate. They are to familiarize themselves with the forms and contents that make up a particular text of speech. The students are initially trained to be capable of understanding appropriate textbuilding. Based on their prior familiarity with some good practices in speechmaking, subsequently they are to create their own text of speech. In classes conducted in a workshop-format type, they are assigned and assisted to prepare a particular speech type of their choice using any local content from their immediate surroundings to be delivered in front of the audience. To make sure that they do really get good examples of some speeches, relevant videocasts were initially selected from online sources to give them sufficient exposure to some initial stages of preparing a speech up to its moments of accomplishment in the form of speech delivery. Such instructional activities equip the students not only with the rhetorical principles of speechmaking but also with some practical skills of speechmaking relevant and beneficial in their local contexts