Persuasive Speeches Examples
#1:
Speech on Thai Food
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t2o0BJ7kUE
#2:
Speech on donating blood
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asa3fwQnxRg&feature=gvrec&context=G2d4cddfRVAAAAAAAAAg
#3:
Speech on being a hero
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYtm8uEo5vU&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL34C
105787B831589
#4:
Speech on downloading music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrt-k5yrNg0
Single-gender education in Thailand deserves to take place in the 21 st century
The debate on single-gender education has been ongoing for a long time. It has
always been involved with several aspects on how it would affect human society including
people in the society and human behaviors. In addition, the debate on benefits between
single-gender education and coeducation has also taken place in the society today,
especially in Thailand. It can be noticed that this issue has become an important issue in
Thailand and the tendency of single-gender education to take place in Thailand is apparently
less than coeducation. Nevertheless, adolescents who graduate from single-gender schools
tend to benefit from their schools rather than those who graduate from coeducational
schools. Thus, single-gender education has more positive effects on adolescents in Thai
society in the 21st century.
To begin with, single-gender education enhances student success since techniques
that are used in schools are practically geared towards their gender. In other words, these
adolescents tend to be more academic and have much more self-confidence than those who
graduate from coeducational schools. Furthermore, with their expertise and intelligence,
such people could play important roles in Thai society. They could also be capable of
boosting up Thai economy and developing the country. Since Thailand is one of developing
countries, single-gender education can efficiently generate hopeful adolescents to help
develop the country. One concrete example is General Surayud Chulanon, who was the 24th
prime minister of Thailand, a former Thai military officer and Army Commander, graduated
from Suankularb Wittayalai School and Saint Gabriel’s college which are both single-gender
schools. When he was in these schools, he was always taught to be single-minded and
prudent. Moreover, the schools utilized specific techniques such as ruling strict disciplines
and providing suitable courses to male students. Therefore, Surayud grew up with a strong
determination towards being an army and he finally graduated from the inaugural class of
Armed forces Preparatory Academy. During his duty as a Prime Minister, he was able to
boost up the economy of Thailand properly. His major proves are such as the overthrowing
of Thaksin Chinnawatra who was famous on corruption and the focus on self-sufficiency of
people which made the people concerned more about living their life adequately.
Secondly, single-gender education helps decrease discipline problems. In actual life,
coeducational schools seem to fix these problems more practically, they actually don’t. Due
to psychological factors, when male and female adolescents are grouped separately by
gender, they tend to be less stubborn and naughty. Most of discipline problems are caused
by the power of the opposite gender. To clarify, most of discipline problems tend to occur
when male adolescents are together with female adolescents. These problems are such as a
fight because of the desire to show off the opposite gender, a fight for the opposite gender,
the distraction of the opposite gender during classes, etc. According to Benjamin Wright’s
experiment in 2000, as he was concerned about the high number of discipline referrals, he
transformed his school to have only single-gender classrooms. As a result, after he grouped
male and female students separately, the discipline referrals had amazingly dropped from
about 30% per day. It’s stated that when same gender adolescents are grouped together,
they act differently and more appropriately. Hence, single-gender schools deserve to be in
Thai society to avoid the discipline problems
However, being in a single-gender school deprives adolescents the ability to socialize
with the opposite gender. In other words, if those adolescents attend single-gender schools,
they will barely get to socialize with the opposite gender in comparison to those who attend
to coeducational schools. In addition, this issue can cause problems to the adolescents and
affect the Thai society as a whole. Those problems are such as the lack of interaction with
others, being close-minded and the lack of self-presentation. More importantly, those
people who are affected by these problems could possibly be playing important roles in Thai
society in the future and they could cause unexpected troubles to the society. One concrete
example is General Suchinja Kraprayoon who was a prime minister of Thailand for only one
month and a half. He graduated from Wat Rajabopit School which is a single-gender school.
Due to his lack of exposure to the people and his close-minded point of view, he was not
able to handle many situations in the country during his period. Thus, he was protested by
people who were disgruntled by his performance and duty as a prime minister. Finally, he
resigned himself on May 24 1992. Having said that, single-gender education doesn’t
necessarily make adolescents unable to communicate with only the same gender, though. It
might be true that single-gender education might reduce a chance of the adolescents to
meet and interact with the opposite gender, but those adolescents can also communicate
and socialize with the opposite gender outside their schools such as at outside private
courses, neighboring houses, etc. In addition, some of Thai psychologists claimed that
although adolescents are grouped by gender separately, it doesn’t really affect their social
life, it all depends on the shyness of the adolescents whether they are able to socialize with
the opposite gender after all.
In conclusion, both single-gender education and co-education have positive and
negative effects to Thai society. Moreover, it’s convincingly proved that single-gender
education has more positive effects towards the Thai society. These effects are such as the
self-confidence, expertise in their fields, the reduction in discipline problems, etc. Although
single-educational schools may reduce a chance of the adolescents to interact with the
opposite gender, they can still meet the opposite gender at other places. Thus, it’s essential
to have single-educational schools in Thailand as to generate new important people to help
out the Thai society which is currently in a process of development. Lastly, single-gender
education is more suitable in Thai society in many aspects as Thai people are less confident
and have more discipline problems in comparison to European or American people. Singlegender schools are able to improve these adolescents to become more self-confident and
disciplined. With the improvements of the people, the improvements of the society will
come along.
References
http://www.singlesexschools.org/worldandi.html
http://www.greatschools.org/find-a-school/defining-your-ideal/single-sex-education-thepros-and-cons.gs?content=1139
http://www.singlesexschools.org/research-singlesexvscoed.htm
http://www2.unescobkk.org/elib/publications/127_128/AdvocacyBrief_Single_Sex_Scho
ols.pdf
http://www.eduqna.com/Primary-Secondary-Education/3429-primary-4.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surayud_Chulanont
http://th.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B9%82%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%87%E0%B9%80%E0%B8
%A3%E0%B8%B5%E0%B8%A2%E0%B8%99%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%8B%E0%B8%99%E0%B8
%95%E0%B9%8C%E0%B8%84%E0%B8%B2%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%9A%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8
%B5%E0%B8%A2%E0%B8%A5 (this reference is about Saint Gabriel’s College which is a
single-gender school. There is also a name and the information link of Surayud Chulanon
whom I used as an example in the second paragraph)
http://th.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B9%82%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%87%E0%B9%80%E0%B8
%A3%E0%B8%B5%E0%B8%A2%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%94%E0%B8
%A3%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%8A%E0%B8%9A%E0%B8%9E%E0%B8%B4%E0%B8%98
(This reference is another one about Wat Rajabopit School which is also a single-gender
school. This is where Sujinda Kraprayoon whom I used as an example in fourth paragraph
graduated from. There is a name of his mentioned at the bottom of the page and the
information link of his as well)
One Laptop per Child: Good or Bad
One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is considered as the tool which gives children a chance to
explore the world. In present, educational system has been changed and it is harder to
comprehend. So laptop would help improve children’s skills and encourage them to learn no
matter where they are. If this project is applied in Thailand, is it run well as many people
though?
I don’t agree with this project. As far as I’m concerned, grade 1 students are not ready to
deal with IT-technology so they cannot receive laptop and use it properly. I was a grade 1
students’ tutor 2 years ago. I observed their behaviors, some were eager to learn new things
but some just lethargically received it. Laptop is the two-way learning media because the
user keys words and the laptop responses. If children are enthusiastic to obtain knowledge,
laptops are useful. But I believe that laptop rather be harmful since, naturally, this age
prefers fun to study. So children can be easily distracted to do what they’d love to instead of
learning, for example, playing games or watching cartoons and then they probably addict to
it. This is not our purpose, isn’t it? And, mostly, they couldn’t concentrate on one thing so
long. It’s almost impossible to force them sit and study motionlessly in front of laptop for a
long time. As I say, they are too young to effectively use laptop.
Expense matters. The government has to spend an enormous amount of money to buy
laptops for children. In January 2010, OLPC offered the XO 1.5 laptops for $200. Then in
early 2011, OLPC upgraded laptop to the XO 1.75 for $150 or less. The latest version will be
the XO 3.0 in 2012 for less than $100. Although there is no formal steady price of laptop
now but the expense of laptops for all grade 1 students in Thailand could be much money.
The Government of India begins distributing 6.8 million laptops in 5 years which cost
approximately $2 billion (62 million baht). Turkmenistan Government spends some of 50
million (230 million baht) yuan subvention from China for 100,000 grade 1 students. What
about Thailand? Olarn Chaipravat, an advisor to Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, said
once he was a senior figure in Puea Thai’s economic team that this project would cost about
4 billion baht. I believe that this money will be more useful if it is spent for social
development or public utility improvement.
The government needs to set up fundamental utility for internet access such as high speed
internet and wifi in all schools and official places and public places for free. Definitely, this
process requires lots of money. Besides, OLPC has been attacked by technology fields (they
can offer only $100 per laptop), development economists (poor countries should buy food
instead of laptops) and environmentalists concern about waste.
This project costs too much expense and is possibly fail. It does more harm than good.
Economic Infrastructure
The government should enforce people to use mass public transportation
instead of their own ones. As everyone can see, the traffic in bangkok is heavily
jammed and its getting worse everyday. This impacts the economic status of an
individual because they have to spend more time on traveling to work at the
same time they have to spend more money on their gasoline. This is one of the
causes of the economic crisis Thailand is facing. As you can see from the
statistics chart on the next pages, the number of cars which were sold and
booked in an event called motor show was high and some of them were higher
than the previous survey. That means individual cars are being used more on the
streets, which is the cause of traffic jams and waste of fuel consumption.
By enforcing people to stop using their own transportation and choose to
use the public transportation, people can save their money by not buying new
cars and hence they do not need to spend money on gasoline. Public
transportation can save money because its cheaper than using private cars. It
also helps the country save money by spending less money on importing
gasoline.
Using the public transportations would help lower the transportation cost
for individuals because people wouldn't have to spend money on buying new
cars. For those who already own vehicles they can save money by leaving their
cars at home.
When more people are forced to use the public transportation it would
help the country lower its spending on importing gasoline. This is because there
are less cars on the streets and hence less using of fuel. This would help the
country survive the economic crisis.
However, people prefer to use their own private transportation because its
more convenient and more private. They don't have to be with other people that
they don't know. Moreover, they can do what ever they want privately.
On the contrary, if everyone still uses their own transportation it would be
a huge waste of money for individuals and would increase the traffic jams
which in turn worsen the country's economy.
So to help both the country and individuals get through the economic
crisis, the government should not hesitate to enforce people stop using private
transportation and turn to use mass public transportation instead.
Statistics of Cars sold per year from Jan 09(52)-Oct 10(53)
Source : http://www.matchingcar.com/board/showthread.php?t=7556
Statistics of Cars Booked in Motor show 2010
Source : http://www.fordfocusclub.com/forum/index.php?topic=4399.100
Persuasive Speech / Personal Opinion Rubric
Excellent 3 pts
Introduction
Excellent
Good 2 pts
Good
Fair 1 pt
Fair
Does an excellent job
of grabbing attention,
relating to the
audience, stating a
clear thesis
statement/previewing
major points, and
provides a smooth
transition into the body
of the speech.
Body
Excellent
Excellent
Good
Fair
Excellent
Does an excellent job
of covering the
material/answering
possible questions;
uses a mature level of
presentation skills;
uses a logical
argument; appeals to
audience (needs); uses
all appeals of reason
Unacceptable
The body was not
present and the speaker
did not support an
argument presented in
the thesis statement.
Good
Fair
Does an excellent job
of restating the
purpose, and
summarizing the major
points; it connects with
the audience; the
speaker calls the
audience to take
action; the speaker
ends with a lasting
closing statement that
leaves the audience
satisfied.
Technique
Unacceptable
Introduction was not
present; speaker
started with the body
of his/her speech.
Provides clear,
organized support of
the thesis statement
(evidence); transitional
statements are used to
allow the speaker to
moves smoothly from
one point to the next;
speaker continues to
keep audience attn. by
using interesting
language.
Conclusion
Unacceptable
0 pts
Unacceptable
The conclusion was
not present; the
speaker ended by
stating something like,
"that's it; that's the
end."
Good
Fair
Unacceptable
The speaker was not
persuasive and did not
present a mature
logical argument.
Delivery
Excellent
Good
Fair
The speaker was
enthusiastic and
passionate about the
charity; kept eye
contact; used clear,
enunciated language;
used a good rate of
speed; body language
was effective and not
distracting.
Visual Aid
Excellent
The visual aid was
used effectively and
provided support for
the argument; it was
clear and easy to
understand; it was well
thought out and it
added interest to the
presentation. No
misspellings or
grammar errors
Unacceptable
The speaker fumbled
through the speech; the
speech seemed
unrehearsed and as if
the speaker was just
presenting anything
that he/she could think
of just to give a
speech.
Good
Fair
Unacceptable
The visual aid was not
present or was
completely unrelated
to the argument.