The skill of public speaking is usually not taught as a conventional school subject. Students may give the occasional class presentation for a project or on a certain topic they have researched on, but the skills of how to give a good presentation or essentially, how to perform effective public speaking is usually unknown to the students.

Sometimes it is not the students fault that they don't know what these skills are or how to use them in their own presentations because it could be that their teachers do not know them even. That's why you see so many teachers give poor lectures which may deliver a lot of useful information but hardly engaging the attention of any of his or her students.

The skill of public speaking in individuals is an implicit skill which should be possessed by anyone who is working with other individuals. For example, when a person goes for an interview, a large part of the evaluation of the potential new hire comes from the way he speaks and the way he presents himself. Can you imagine interviewing a person that comes into the interview room and who possess very good qualifications but he looks at the table and mumbles while he answers your questions and you have no idea what he is talking about.

Hence, whether in school or at work, when there is a need to communicate ideas to other members, you will not only need to effective get your message across, but you should also ensure that people understand and know exactly what you are talking about.

Public speaking is not just saying what you want to say to other people. Communication is a two way process.Communication is about you delivering a message and other people understanding and responding to your message, whether it be a mental or physical response. However, most of the people who are delivering a speech are just reading their speech. They do not attempt to engage their audience or simply, they may not know how. If you notice, the best teachers are the ones that are always the people that engages their students by involving them in the process of knowledge discovery.

Public speaking is an important skill because communication by itself, is part of being human. If you find yourself addressing more then a couple of people, then you are doing public speaking. Therefore, the need to learn good public speaking skills is critical, whether you are a student or a working adult. If you do not have the skill set for a being a good public speaker, you will just be disadvantaging yourself because people just cannot fully understand what your message is.