Country Speeches

Krysta Banwell

PROCEDURE:

You can carry on this activity for several classes without it being the primary focus of the class. (ie. I collected their first drafts on a day when we were learning past tense verbs)

1. Explain the activity to the students: that they will each research and present a speech on a country that they will pick at random from a hat. They must write at least 10 sentences, 5 of which must contain the country’s population, currency, religion, government and capital city (or other criteria of your choice). The remaining sentences can be on any other element/criteria of the country.
2. Have the students pick country names from a hat. I used the same 40 countries for each of my classes to make it easier on me for correcting their stats.
3. Students are given the “Speech Explanation” and “Rough Copy” handouts. Go over the example speeches with them and explain the key expressions etc. They can work on their first copy during class or as homework, depending on class time restrictions. * They probably won’t have much to go on the first class. Encourage them to research material on the internet and bring it to the next class.
4. Have students hand in their rough drafts either one or two weeks later. Correct them quickly using the prepared “Country Statistics” chart and give them back to the students. They now have one week from receiving it back until they present and hand in their “Good Copy”.
5. It takes one class for approximately 20 students to present their speeches, so you most likely will have to dedicate 2 classes solely to presentation. Explain to the students that while their peers are presenting, they must listen for the relevant information for their own “marking sheet” handout. While the students are presenting, the ALT & JTE should at least be marking them on audibility and content. You can also add-in the presentation element of the student pointing to their country on a world map that you can have on the black board behind them.
6. After the final copies of the speeches are collected and your students have presented, it’s now up to you how involved you get in the grading structure. I graded the speech on spelling, having at least 10 sentences, gestures, content and I factored in their marking sheets of their peers. Refer to attached grading sheets and handouts

NOTES:

This activity can take up a lot of time, but it’s very useful and enjoyable for the students. You can change this activity around in so many ways: increase/decrease the difficulty of it, ask for pictures, give them different statistics to find, make it less professional, put them in teams, videotape the speeches to watch later, do all the work in class, or do something bigger like typing up all the speeches and making them into a book to give to your Kocho-sensei (I did this over summer vacation last year and it was a great project to highlight the work done in English at my school, and also to keep me busy while I had no classes). Good Luck to all!

WORKSHEETS AND HANDOUTS

Country information used by students

http://teachingactivities.pbwiki.com/f/countrystatistics_kbanwell.xls

Student speechwriting worksheet

http://teachingactivities.pbwiki.com/f/roughandgoodcopy_kbanwell.xls

Mark sheets for speeches

http://teachingactivities.pbwiki.com/f/speechmarking_kbanwell.xls

Useful vocabulary for this topic

http://teachingactivities.pbwiki.com/f/speechvocabulary_kbanwell.xls