The Young Orators Club was created in response to three critical and interconnected challenges faced by underprivileged children in India.
First, millions of children from low-income backgrounds have limited access to structured opportunities and supportive environments to develop communication and English speaking skills. While English is often taught as a subject, many students rarely get regular chances to practice speaking with confidence.
Second, girls are among the most disadvantaged. Many continue to face gender inequality, lower expectations, restricted mobility, and fewer opportunities for higher education and leadership due to social norms and limited agency. Building confidence and voice at an early age is especially important for them.
Third, children from marginalized communities often enter adolescence and adulthood with low confidence because they have not developed the communication skills needed to compete on equal footing with peers from more privileged backgrounds. This affects their ability to participate fully in classrooms, pursue higher education, succeed in interviews, and access better livelihood opportunities.
We created Young Orators Club to change this trajectory early in life. YOC provides joyful, structured opportunities for students to speak, express themselves, collaborate, and lead through engaging activities such as Picture Talk, Show & Tell, Role Play, and Conversation.
The Young Orators Club trains and empowers teachers and education officers in public schools with simple activities and practical strategies that create regular opportunities for all children to practice communication and speaking skills. We partner with district education departments, onboard government schools across the district, and work with students from Grades 3 to 8. One to two teachers from each school are trained two to three times during the academic year.
Teachers use the “I Do, We Do, You Do” method to help students move from guided speaking to independent expression. Mind maps and cue prompts support children in organizing ideas and speaking in complete sentences.
To strengthen school-level implementation, Mandal Education Officers and Cluster Mentoring Officers are trained to guide, monitor, and support the program in their respective areas.
Primary schools conduct two YOC periods each week, while high schools conduct one. Students engage in Picture Talk, Show & Tell, Conversation, and Role Play activities. Implementation is further supported through refresher trainings, school visits, classroom observations, feedback coaching, district reviews, and student showcases.
Evidence from 2025–26 shows strong growth: beginner-level students reduced from 65% to 41%, intermediate students increased from 25% to 35%, and proficient students rose from 10% to 23%. These results reflect a clear shift from hesitation and limited expression toward fluency, and confidence.
YOC was launched as a pre-pilot project in 2-3 public schools of Narayanept district, Telangana in 2023 and by looking at the impact and growth it was expanded across Narayanpet and Vikarabad districts in Telangana, India in 2024. The program was spread through strong evidence and collaboration with district administrations, school leadership, and local education officers.
Major achievements in the last 1-2 years include:
1. Reached approximately 85,506 students across two districts.
2. Trained 15,70 teachers across 33 mandals
3. Conducted end of the year showcase where students displayed their communication and english speaking skills in front of large audience and district officials such as District Collector, District Education Officer, MEOs and teachers.
4. Schools organized mid-year showcases during PTMs in front of parents.
The program has demonstrated that communication skills can be built at scale inside government systems without expensive infrastructure.
Goals for the next 2-3 years:
1. Expand to additional districts and reach 100,000+ students
2. Integrate YOC strategies in other subjects such as social studies, science etc
3. Integrate the program in state curriculum
4. Build student leadership and debate pathways
Since launch, YOC has evolved significantly based on classroom realities and implementation learnings.
Initially focused on speaking activities, the model now includes a stronger ecosystem for sustainable adoption:
1. Refresher teacher trainings embedded into existing meetings
2. Classroom coaching through school visits
3. Joint monitoring with MEOs and CHMs
4. Use of mind maps/prompts to support hesitant learners
5. Demonstration classes for teachers
6. Showcase events to motivate students and families
7. WhatsApp-based sharing of student speaking videos
8. Stronger focus on multi-grade classrooms and participation tracking
We also learned the importance of prioritizing hands-on practice over theory during teacher training. This increased teacher confidence and improved facilitation quality. Student participation also improved progressively over time as peer learning and regular practice became normalized. These refinements have made YOC more scalable, practical, and system-owned.
These are the few steps one can take:
1. Pilot the model in a few schools to build yours and teachers' conviction in the methods.
2. Invite district officials to the classroom and let children show the growth.
3. Collaborate with the district officials and take necessary permissions for launching the project at scale.
4. Request officials to direct schools to dedicate one/two weekly speaking periods in the school timetable.
5. Plan and facilitate practice oriented training for teachers displaying how to use YOC activities step by step in the classroom.
6. In the first quarter, ask teachers to begin with Picture Talk and Show & Tell activities and then in the later half of the year focus can be on Conversation, and Role Play.
7. Provide a YOC handbook to teachers which includes required resources, it can be a digital copy or printed one.
8. Align with the middle leadership (MEOs, CHMs) to provide support to teachers at school level.
9. Ensure organizing an end year showcase bringing all the stakeholders together to show the magic of improvement in students communication and English speaking skills.
