Speech Practice Workshop

Your Speech Assignment

Write a 2-minute speech (approximately 250-300 words) on one of these topics:

1. 'The most important skill schools don't teach.' Persuade your audience that a specific skill (financial literacy, emotional intelligence, negotiation, coding, etc.) should be mandatory.
2. 'A policy the world should adopt from [country].' Pick a real policy from a real country (Finland's education model, Portugal's drug decriminalization, Rwanda's plastic bag ban, Japan's train punctuality culture) and argue it should be adopted globally.
3. 'Why [something most people dismiss] actually matters.' Make a case for something undervalued (sleep, boredom, handwriting, walking, public libraries, etc.).

Requirements

• Use the Problem-Solution-Benefit or What-So What-Now What framework
• Include at least one specific example with a real data point
• Open with a hook (not 'Today I'm going to talk about...')
• Close with a memorable final line
• Use at least one rhetorical technique (rule of three, anaphora, antithesis, rhetorical question)

How to Practice

1. Write the speech (10 minutes)
2. Read it aloud three times. Time yourself. Cut if over 2 minutes.
3. On the fourth read, record yourself on your phone.
4. Watch the recording and note: pace, pauses, eye contact (at camera), filler words, energy.
5. Record one more time with adjustments.

The Delivery Rehearsal Checklist

Once your speech is written, delivery is where it's won or lost. Run this checklist across your practice recordings, fixing one row per pass:

Worked example of the loop: Record, then watch once with the sound off (you'll see posture and gestures), then watch once looking away from the screen (you'll hear pace and fillers), fix the single biggest issue, and re-record. Three focused cycles beat ten unfocused run-throughs, because each cycle isolates one variable instead of trying to fix everything at once.