Program areas at The Practice Space
Year-Round Direct Services for Youth: We partner to offer after-school programs and summer camps for K-12 youth, who learn speech and debate and participate in community events (such as showcases and tournaments) along with paid jobs for older youth to learn to coach. These programs help young people feel confident with oral communication. Through interactive practice and fun activities, our clubs and camps serve as enrichment, career development, mentoring, and leadership development programs because they help young people develop their voices through culturally-relevant content. Students practice a wide range of public speaking modalities to gain positive memories around public speaking. They experience presentations, debate, acting, advocacy speeches, poetry, podcasting, and more, and practice regularly each week with coach feedback.
Curriculum & Teacher Coaching: We partner with schools and districts, offering year-long speech/debate curriculum and teacher coaching to engage English Learners in high schools (especially Long-Term English Learners) through relevant projects. Our Speech and Debate course uses 6 projects (with online coaching) as the driver for learning for English Learners in high school, including: podcasting, drama, presentation, speak in real life, debate and argumentation and keynote. Teacher coaching and professional development workshops help teachers improve student engagement, advance literacy skills, meet academic standards and reclassification requirements, and prepare for postsecondary life.
Adult Workshops & Lessons: We partner with businesses and nonprofits, offering customized executive coaching, group workshops, and private lessons focusing on pitches, storytelling, presentations, and keynotes. We offer educational workshops that help participants with speech writing, oral delivery, impostor syndrome, anxiety-coping, and adapting to their audiences. Our workshops are offered to teams at their workplaces, in addition to online and in-person private lessons. They learn tips and techniques that they can immediately apply to their jobs and practice implementing coach feedback through example presentations.