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Impromptu Speaking (Speeches)
This is a PowerPoint I developed while teaching at a university in China. As part of my Spoken English class students would give 3 impromptu speeches spread over the semester. This PowerPoint was used the week prior to the first impromptu speech.
The design was as follows:
Speech #1 - Students would arrive in class. At the front of the class was a paper bag full of basic conversation starter questions. I would select a student at random based on their id number. That student would walk to the front of the class, put their hand in the paper bag, and pull out 2 questions. They then went into the hallway where they had 1 minute to prepare and impromptu speech answering one of the 2 questions.
While in the hallway I would encourage the class to relax and listen to the speech.
After the 1 minute prep time was finished I randomly selected the second student. That student went to the front of the class, selected 2 questions from the paper bag, went into the hallway to prepare, and sent the first student back into the classroom.
After the first speech was finished, I selected the third student, they picked two questions, went into the hallway and sent the second back in to present their speech.
Repeat.
The secret of this activity is the fact that there is always one student in the hallway preparing their speech. The constant rotation eliminates downtime.
For the second impromptu speech I used slightly more difficult questions. Students selected 2 questions from the paper bag, had 90 seconds to prepare a 90 second speech.
Impromptu Speech number 3 was 2 minutes long and even more difficult questions.
I encouraged students to have their friends ´signal´ them with regards to their time. I graded them based on introduction (did they introduce themselves and state the question/issue), content (did they address the question), use of signposts and transitions, and conclusion (did they summarize.)
This lesson is easily scalable for lower level learners. You can also adjust the length of the speech accordingly.
Copyright 10/9/2009 mookie
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