3, 2, 1, Speak!

Purpose: To assist learners in developing their verbal summarizing skills.

Preparation Time: None

Materials Needed: None

Procedure:

1. Tell the learners the speaking prompt. This can be a personal experience, what they’ve learned in class, describing a picture, or talking about a current event.
2. Give the learners a few minutes to think about what they are going to say.
3. Break the learners into two equal groups. Have the two groups line up facing one another.
4. Explain that one side of the line is going to speak first, and the other side will listen first.
5. Have the speakers respond to the prompt for 90 seconds.
6. Direct the learner at the end of the speaking line to move to the other end. Everyone else in the speaking line moves down one person so that each speaker has a new partner.
7. Have the speakers respond to the same prompt, this time for 60 seconds. They will need to decide which parts of their response they want to cut out in order to fit it into the allotted time.
8. Direct the learner at the end of the speaking line to move to the other end. Everyone else in the speaking line moves down one person so that each speaker has a new partner.
9. Have the speakers respond to the same prompt, this time for thirty seconds. They will need to decide which parts of their response they want to cut out in order to fit it into the allotted time.
10. Switch roles so that the speakers become listeners, and repeat steps 5-9.

Expansion 1: Ask for volunteers to stand up in front of the group and share their response in 10 seconds.

Expansion 2: Have the learners write one sentence that summarizes their response, and then share it with a partner or with the whole group.

Like this activity? Want to find more speaking and listening activities like this? Check out the Speaking and Listening Instructional Support Kit.