(GROUP WORK)

Advance Oral Communication

Prepared by Elyssa Kay Verano-Martinez, MAELT
Surigao del Sur State University
8300, Philippines

TASK 3
VOICE EXERCISE
BREATH SPAN
Malicsi, J. The Linguistics Project. Oral Communication Strategies. Anvil Publishing.

Directions: The following sentences constitute Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address,
delivered on the 19th of November 1863. Read the sentences aloud, using only one breath per
sentence – easy for the short ones, but hard for the long ones. The last line will have to be spoken
in two breaths, so determine where the breathing point should be, based on the structure of ideas.
Speak at a normal rate, and make sure that your speech is clear and your listeners can accurately
pick up the information. The sentences should flow from one to the other since they constitute
one discourse.

1. Four scores and seven year ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation,
conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
2. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so
conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
3. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
4. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who
here gave their lives so that nation might live.
5. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
6. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate - we cannot consecrate - we cannot hallow -
this ground.
7. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our
poor power to add or retract.
8. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget
what they did here.
9. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who
fought here have thus fa so nobly advanced.
10. It is rather for us the be dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these
honored dead we may take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last
full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died
in vain – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish
from the earth.

WHAT TO DO:
1. Download the material. Master the speech. Memorize.
2. Download the scoring rubric.
3. In your assigned groups, rehearse the speech collaboratively in preparation for individual
presentation.
4. Prepare for a speech performance scheduled on Friday, September 20, 2019.

The Speech Performance: In as much as creativity is indulging, the focus of this activity is
to capacitate proper breathing in speech. Hence, the group is advised to restrain from
further creativity for this task alone, like that integrated in creative speech choir
presentations. Focus on proper and synchronized delivery.

Just have fun! -K.