VERBAL TREATS are worth developing on the level of both quantity as well as quality. In order to make progress in both at the same time, it is most recommendable to have a clear direction of development: to move from simplistic to artistic treats (relating to different areas of life).
This can be done by going along four stages:
1. PREPARE GROUNDS
for your verbal treats
(a) categorise your verbal treats (into stories, jokes riddles, discoveries, or other types you can think of), (b) consider their chief CHARACTERISTICS: what values, behaviours, emotions, knowledge they promote; use this as a “filter” for enriching your repertoire of verbal treats
2. IDENTIFY VERBAL TREATS
in your everyday life
(a) list the verbal treats you deliver most often; (b) reflect on various SETTINGS you are engaged in, starting with your home and school/work, and reaching out to various events, venues, books, films, resources filling into your regular daily experience
3. EXPLORE THE WORLD
for verbal treats
(a) go beyond your individual experience and draw from the experience of others; (b) think of what kind of COMPETENCE particular verbal treats rely on and support, be it intelligence, logic, sense of humour, memory, creativity, emotional intelligence
4. REFINE YOUR SET
of verbal treats
(a) look at the form as accompanying and strengthening the content; (b) take into account the TECHNICALITIES of your verbal treats such as the word choice, register, speech disfluencies, grammatical diversity, etc.
Whilst common (self-oriented) simplest treats can be unprepared and essentially spontaneous, the artistic ones, addressing the surrounding world, are meticulously created and intensively practised. Neither of them are better than the other, but together they form two sides of the coin, so to speak, which means that a person’s full and natural repertoire should cover both.