Short talks

When it comes to oral practice in class, there are lots of things in favour of timed turns. If everyone has the same amount of time to speak, the playing field is level. The reluctant speaker is challenged to articulate his or her thoughts, and the student with verbal diarrhoea or an inflated sense of his or her status in the group can be restrained.

In the speaking paper of the Cambridge examinations, each candidate has a "long turn" of one minute, which gives the examiner a chance to concentrate on each individual performance. These long turns have various formats, but they can all be practised for by getting students used to speaking for a minute at a time.

Who it's for:
All levels

What it's for:
Exam practice, fluency

What you need:
Four or five short texts, such as those in the World View section, from any issue of Spotlight.

What you do:
In the previous lesson, mentally divide your group into four or five, and hand out copies of the texts, one text per student, so that you can build groups of students with different texts in the next lesson. Tell the students that they should read their article for homework and be prepared to talk about it in the next lesson.

In the lesson, divide the class into groups where each student has a different text. (These should be put out of sight.) Tell the students that each person will have a minute to talk about his or her article. The speaker will be asked one or more questions after the minute is up.

Elicit and put up some prompts on the board, such as "When did this story take place?", "Where did/does this story take place?", "Who is involved in the story?"

It is a good idea to make the turn-taking random, so that everyone is kept on their toes. You can do this by writing the article headings on the board, numbering them, and giving each group a dice to roll to select the person who will speak next. You can also ask the students to write their heading on a card. The cards are collected, shuffled and put face-down in a pile on the table. Students turn over the top card to select the next speaker.

Make sure that each group has a timekeeper. Remind the students of the prompts on the board, and say that they can also give their own opinions and talk about the picture that accompanied the article. When each minute is up, the other group members are responsible for asking the speaker a question or two. This should also ensure that they actually listen to each other.

When each group finishes, get the listeners to summarize each story. This can be done orally or in writing.