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Ready for Speech Submitted by: Raymond Calla Borrowed from or inspired by: Getting Ready for Speech teaching book Date added: 04/13/08
 Outline: Make public speaking and introductions fun. Procedure: - Have students stand up and form a line behind you at the back of the class, much like the way you would line up for follow the leader.
- Approach the front of the class, rotate yourself towards the back with your legs spread apart a bit as if you were a powerful speech presenter. Students should not be following you, only watch from their line in the back.
- Return to the back of the line, and have the next student copy what you just did. Do this for each student until you're at the front of the line again.
- Once again approach the front, rotate with legs spread a bit, and this time hold out one palm, make a fist with your other hand, and pound your palm with your fist as if you were a firm, tough presenter!
- Have students repeat as in step 3.
- One more time, approach the front of the class, rotate, legs spread a bit, pound your palm, and next raise your dominant hand in the air, index finger up as if to make a supreme declaration, suck in a big breath of air and... just as students are expecting you to say something, release the breath, disappoint their expectations, and return to the back again.
- Have students repeat as in step 3 once more. Somebody usually gets at least a chuckle out of your actions by this point.
- Last time, approach the front, rotate, legs spread a bit, pound your palm, raise your dominant hand with index finger extended into the air, take a deep breath and declare firmly: "I'm (your name)!"
- Students repeat as in step 3, and have a lot of fun introducing themselves in front of their peers.
Teaching Suggestions: Without explanation, I typically continue the exercise a few more times building with "I'm (age)", and "I live in (place)". By the end, students approach the front, do the motions, and say "I'm (name), I'm (age), and I live in (place). Each week after until they really have it, get students to give their full introduction when they enter the classroom, before they sit down.
Variations: I learned the basis of the actions from the book Getting Ready for Speech (David Harrington and Charles DeBeau, ISBN 1-929274-45-9). In class, I also take a few pages out of the first activity to have students make more elaborate introductions later in the class.
Cautions: Depending on the class attention span and number of students per line, this may drag a bit. My largest class is 8 students, so I haven't run into a problem yet. One suggestion for a larger class might be to split the class into two groups and the homeroom teacher becomes the leader of the second group.
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