Although the class in advanced public speaking is a mainstay of communication
instruction, little scholarship has addressed the nature of expertise in public speaking or
the instructional techniques by which it is imparted. The present study conducted
in-depth interviews with 23 active college teachers of advanced public speaking, inquiring
specifically about their goals, curriculum, and classroom activities for the class and
the ways in which these were distinguished from the basic speech class. Qualitative
thematic analysis yielded six distinctive themes: (1) extensive speaking performance and
individualized critique, (2) learning additional genres, (3) learning additional theory,
(4) intensive study of models, (5) extensive self-analysis, and (6) sophisticated processes
for analyzing speaking situations. Two broad pedagogical tensions, both with classical
roots, attend these issues: (1) the tension between teaching theory and facilitating
practice and (2) the tension between teaching forms of speaking and teaching rhetorical
processes.