@The Arts Unit Creative Classes

Impressive impromptus

Captivate your audience with impressive impromptu speeches

Student public speaking resource developed by The Arts Unit

Years 3 to 6 public speaking

What will I learn?

You will:

  • identify and reflect on the elements of an impromptu speech

  • respond quickly to a stimulus

  • organise your ideas

  • practise your own impromptu speeches.

Before you begin

You will need:

  • an ideas notebook and a pen

  • palm cards or pieces of paper

  • a hat or box or small container to put topics in

  • stopwatch or phone timer.

  1. Identify

In public speaking competitions, there are certain things you should be aware of before you attempt the impromptu section.

Watch the clip, ‘Hints and guidelines for public speaking competitions – Impromptu speeches', and complete the activities.

  • In a competition, how much of the final result is determined by the impromptu speech?

  • Make a list of the things that should NOT be included in an impromptu speech.

  • Make a list of the suggested topics that were mentioned.

  • Write down anything else you learned from this video.

Hints and guidelines for public speaking competitions – Impromptu speeches

Duration: 01:42
Impromptu: A speech that is made up just before speaking.

Harriet Coates

2019 State Champion – Multicultural Perspective Public Speaking for Years 3 & 4
Harriet Coates – 2019 State Champion – Multicultural Perspective Public Speaking for Years 3 and 4

In competitions such as the Multicultural Perspectives Public Speaking Competition, speakers in Years 3 and 4 are given 5 minutes of preparation time for a one-minute impromptu speech, while speakers in Years 5 and 6 are given 5 minutes for a two-minute impromptu speech.

Five minutes seems like a long time, so let’s have a go.

Reflect on the elements of an impromptu speech.

Using your palm cards or a piece of paper, give yourself 5 minutes to write down some ideas in response to each topic below.

Topic 1

Changes

Topic 2

The next step

Topic 3

Good news



Record yourself (or ask someone to record you) speaking on this topic for 1 minute.

Watch the recording back and write some observations in your notebook about what you were doing.

You might write down things such as:

  • How long you spoke for before running out of things to say.

  • Were you listing things to do with the topic?

  • How many times did you say 'um', 'ah' or 'like'?

  • Did you repeat yourself?

  • Did you leave long pauses?

  • Anything else you observed.

Keep these notes to refer to later.

2. Respond

Respond quickly to stimulus

The best way to prepare for impromptu speaking is through practice! And the good news is that there are lots of fun ways to practise impromptu speaking that take it from being a difficult task to something that you feel comfortable doing.

Play these games with a partner to build up your impromptu muscles! You can play them in person or in an online forum like messenger chat or even just over the phone!

Word associations

This game teaches you to think quickly and respond to the meanings of words.

  • Work with a partner.

  • One person says a simple word, such as ‘elephant’.

  • The other person replies with the first word that comes into their head, such as ‘big’, ‘trunk’ or ‘remember’.

  • Focus on saying the response word as quickly as you can and not repeating words that have already been said.

  • The first person responds with the first word that comes into their head and so on.

After a few rounds, your partner should respond with a whole sentence.

Be tricky and try some more challenging words!

For example:

  • River – My uncle likes to go fishing in the river.

  • Hope – I’ve always been taught that when I feel sad I should try to look for hope.

  • Advantage – The referee blew his whistle for a penalty and gave the other team an advantage.

If you are stuck for words, there are some in the drop-down boxes below. You could cut them up or write some words of your own, place them in a hat and take turns at coming up with whole sentences that are prompted by one word.

Simple

  • add

  • bark

  • car

  • drum

  • end

  • fun

  • gift

  • harm

  • if

  • just

  • keep

  • land

Common

  • afraid

  • birthday

  • choose

  • debate

  • educate

  • family

  • garden

  • happiness

  • islands

  • joke

  • knee

  • lesson

Difficult

  • awareness

  • bargain

  • celebration

  • disappear

  • evidence

  • favourite

  • generation

  • honest

  • illegal

  • journey

  • knowledge

  • language

Challenging

  • adolescent

  • brilliance

  • consequence

  • discipline

  • environment

  • fascinating

  • guarantee

  • humanitarian

  • irresponsible

  • justice

  • kayak

  • leisure

Group story-telling. This game helps you to structure your response by using a beginning, a middle and an end.

It also reminds you to lead to a point in your story.

Before playing this game, review the elements of a narrative text.

Narrative elements

  • Orientation – The beginning of the story. Tells the audience who is involved and where the characters are.

  • Complication – Something disturbs the normal routine for our character.

  • Events/consequences – The things that happen to the character as a direct result of the complication.

  • Resolution – The ending. Things may go back to normal for the character but with some important changes.

  • Coda – The moral of the story.

Now that you have reviewed the elements of narrative, with a partner or in a small group, tell a story together.

Each person takes responsibility for a part of the story and will speak for 30 seconds before the next person continues the story and extends it for another 30 seconds.

Continue until the story is complete with a moral or coda.

An impromptu speech should also be structured with a beginning, a middle and an end. One way to approach your impromptu speech is to use this narrative structure:

  • Think about the complication in a story as the issue that you think is disturbing the natural order of the community you want to talk about.

  • The events in the story are the ongoing problems that occur as a direct result of that issue.

  • And the conclusion of your story is the solution that you think will fix the issue.

  • Finally, the moral of your story is the point you are trying to make in your speech so that your audience will think about what you have said.

Listen to this impromptu speech.

Identify how the speaker has used a narrative structure in order to make a point about the topic, 'rewards'.

Eden Wong – Rewards

2019 Years 3 & 4 Multicultural Perspectives Public Speaking FinalistDuration: 01:17

3. Organise

You can get ready for an impromptu speech in the same way as you would for a prepared speech.

Don’t try to learn a speech off by heart and ignore the topic but do:

  • pay attention to what is going on around you

  • think about the lessons that can be learned from everyday events

  • structure your ideas using dot points in your notebook

  • learn the meanings of new words and phrases so that you can interpret any topic and use it to say something important to your audience.

Watch how Micaela explains how she prepares for impromptu speaking by staying aware of the issues in the society she is living in.

Preparing for an impromptu speech

Duration: 00:52

Using your ideas notebook, write down something that you have learned recently.

This lesson may have been found in:

  • a book that you read

  • a film that you watched

  • a news story you saw on TV

  • a discussion with friends or family

  • something you saw on the internet

  • a game that you have played

  • something your teacher talked about in class.

For example: you may have read a book where you felt you could relate to the main character in some way. Because of this, you may have learned a valuable lesson about yourself as an individual and also about the way society views people who are considered to be ‘different’.

In your ideas notebook, you could write down:

  • the name of the book

  • the name of the character you could relate to and why

  • some dot points about what happens to the character and how they fit into their society

  • the lesson you learned about the wider world from reading this book.

Watch this impromptu speech by Lilly Watkins, who has used her previous knowledge of a book she has read as material for an impromptu on the topic of 'Getting distracted'.

Keep adding to your ideas notebook whenever you read, hear or view something that makes you think!

4. Practise!

Now that you have some ideas to play with and know how to respond quickly to a stimulus topic, it’s time to do lots of practice.

Play one-word impromptus

This game will help you to build up your confidence when responding to impromptu topics.

Using the Word Generator:

  • Go to the game: Subjects

  • Go to the category: Travel

  • Press 'New Word'.

Use the word that comes up as a stimulus for a 30-second impromptu.

Keep practising until you can build up to 1 minute and then 2 minutes.

Try other categories such as Feelings and Emotions, or Art.

  • If you come across a word you don’t know, look it up and write a definition in your ideas notebook.

  • You can also cut up lots of words and put them into your hat for your own one-word impromptus.

Try to relate the word to a bigger idea. It might remind you of something you have read or viewed or talked about with someone else.

Return to the Word Generator:

  • Go to the game: Wordplay

  • Go to the category: Idioms and Sayings

  • Press 'New Word'.

Use the saying that comes up as a stimulus for your 1-2 minute impromptu.

  • If you come across a saying you haven’t heard before, look it up and write the meaning down in your ideas notebook.


Using the same stimulus you used at the beginning of this lesson (changes, the next step or good news), record yourself (or ask someone to record you) again, speaking on this topic for 1-2 minutes.

How have you improved?

Watch this excellent impromptu speech by Multicultural Perspectives Public Speaking Competition for Years 5 and 6 State champion, Ava Dupont, as she delivers her impromptu speech entitled 'What a mess'.

Ava Dupont – What a mess

2019 Years 5 & 6 Multicultural Perspectives Public Speaking WinnerDuration: 02:11

Consider what you can learn from Ava in terms of her general knowledge, her use of the topic and the way she has carefully structured her speech to make an important point for her audience.

Comment on how Ava has:

  • come up with a strong beginning

  • identified an issue

  • explained why this is a problem we should care about

  • offered a solution to the issue

  • used the topic as the title of her speech

  • used personal experience, general knowledge and narrative elements to explore the topic

  • finished with a strong conclusion.

You may also like to complete this @The Arts Unit Creative Class.

Painting pictures with words - Years 3 to 6 public speaking.

Congratulations! You have completed this @The Arts Unit Creative Class.

Remember this is not about learning speeches off by heart or trying to force a topic into your speech. It is about being well-informed and interested in the world around you so that you can take the precious opportunity given to you to come up with a persuasive and worthwhile speech for your listeners.

Good luck with your impromptu speaking!

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