The present paper is devoted to the frequent phenomenon of oratory incompetence within the academic community. It is aimed to affirm the significance of teaching public speaking skills to students of natural sciences in view of its considerable underestimation within the English language courses. The objectives set for achieving this goal are the following: to analyze an example of student's academic speech for the purpose of marking typical speakers' mistakes; to suggest videotaping as an effective tool in developing public speaking competence. The article describes the gist of the most common oratory ‘faux pas' and justifies video recording as a good methodological technique which handles several issues at a time. The relevance of this study is determined by the high demand for the skills concerned and immature methodology developed for their training.