3 Ways to Help Students Become Confident Public Speakers

At the beginning of the school year, Rebekah’s fear of public speaking was a whole-body experience. “I wanted to throw up. I would shake really bad and my hands would get sweaty,” she recalls in a conversation with her high school English teacher, Dave Stuart Jr. “Then I’d forget what I wanted to say because I’d get so nervous.” 

She’s not alone in her visceral dread at the prospect of speaking in front of a classroom of peers, but allowing students to believe that a fear of public speaking is unconquerable can exert a long-term and ultimately harmful impact, says Stuart. “I don't know if I could name anything that has a bigger effect on a student's development of confidence, resilience, and efficacy than facing that fear.”

The ability to speak well in public, and listen and engage with others in conversation, is “as important as reading and writing,” writes Oli de Botton, a former English teacher and co-founder of the London-based School 21. Indeed, oracy skills often become one of the “biggest indicators of success,” not only impacting students’ employability but their social-emotional well-being as well, says Amy Gaunt, an educator and director of strategic development. “If children aren't able to express themselves and communicate how they're feeling, they're not going to be able to be successful members of society." 

Like any muscle, strengthening speaking skills requires sustained practice over time. To start, less intimidating activities like traverse talk or think-pair-share—where students discuss their thinking in response to a prompt with a partner, and then share the results with the whole class—provide a low-stakes on-ramp prior to more substantive class presentations, group projects, speeches, and debates. 

For most students (though accommodations are necessary for students with IEPs or 504 plans), normalizing nervousness, increasing the frequency of speaking opportunities, and celebrating efforts along the way can slowly transform even the most reluctant kids into confident, purposeful speakers. Some might still feel the nerves, Stuart says, but “99 percent of students can overcome debilitating public speaking anxiety and learn how to function in the face of it.” That includes his student Rebekah who says, “the more I did it, the more comfortable I became.”

Here are three classroom activities designed to help students develop into confident public speakers. 

Pop-Up Debates: Frustrated by more formal debate formats that require rearranged seating or assigned student roles, Stuart began subtracting unwieldy elements until a simpler model emerged—the pop-up debate. In this exercise, students are presented with a prompt or question, which they spend a few minutes individually writing a response to. For example: Which lifestyle is preferable—that of hunter-gatherers or modern Americans? Allowing students to organize their initial thoughts is key, demonstrating that “in this class you're going to have to speak for the whole class to hear whether you volunteer or not, but you'll always be prepared,” he says.

Next, the debate begins. Every student is required to contribute at least once, Stuart insists, and the floor belongs to whoever is standing. To speak, students “pop up” at their desk, present their response to the prompt, and sit down when they’re done. If two students stand at the same time, they decide together who will cede the floor. As the conversation unfolds, Stuart checks off student names from a roster on his clipboard, ensuring that every student speaks regularly. If the debate stalls, a quick glance at his list tells him who to call on to start things back up. 

Not every student will participate willingly, and some may freeze when they hear their name called out. In those moments, Stuart responds encouragingly: “I might say something like, ‘You've got this, Mikey,’ or, ‘Use your notes if you need to!’ If they seem really stuck, I'll say, ‘Take a minute to gather your thoughts and you can try again.’” While participation in these debates isn’t optional in his classroom, Stuart highlights the importance of creating a supportive classroom culture where students realize they can “speak for the whole class to hear and not perish.”

After the pop-up debate, an essential reflection question—How many of you felt at least 1 percent nervous?—offers a crucial level-set for students, clarifying that most of the class feels uneasy about public speaking. “Point their attention to everyone who's raising their hand and say, ‘Public speaking anxiety is normal, but notice that it's not the final word,’” he says. “‘You just did public speaking, you stood up in front of your peers as a ninth grader, and you survived it.’” 

The Um Game: A few spare minutes at the end of a lesson aren’t downtime in English teacher Andrew Paull’s classroom. Students perk up the moment he reaches for his trusty stack of index cards and sets a timer. It’s time for The Um Game. The rules are simple: a volunteer is chosen to come to the front of the classroom, draw a topic at random, then speak about it to the class for 60 seconds in exchange for extra credit. But there’s a catch: they cannot use filler words like “um” or “like.” 

To set the tone as supportive and positive, student speakers are warmly received by their peers with a round of applause before and after their speech. This, in addition to the “randomness and banality of the speaking topics”—from turtles and trees to rain and hot chocolate—lessens the fear of being right or wrong while injecting “an air of whimsy” into the game, Paull says. That matters, because some students will slip up but should still be celebrated for taking a risk and encouraged to try again. 

Because the Um Game may mostly appeal to confident speakers, allowing reluctant speakers to remain silent, Paull asks all students to write short reflections on the best techniques they observed their peers using during the game, and then read their notes aloud to the class.

The Hot Seat: For students who struggle to speak in front of classmates, Socratic seminars reinforce the idea that "learning is social, and speaking up is a big part of that,” writes assistant principal Mary Davenport.

The “fishbowl” adaptation features an inner circle of desks with an outer ring of desks around it. While the inner circle students are actively engaged in conversation “inside the fishbowl”—discussing their analysis of a text—the outer circle function as observers, assessing their peers’ performance so they can provide feedback. “Are they making eye contact? Are they referring to the text as evidence? Are they including other people in the discussion?,” explains English teacher Geron Spray. The two groups then switch roles.

To further engage the whole class, Jennifer Montgomery’s seventh-grade English students seated in the outer circle can jump into the “hot seat” to share a quick thought or comment, then hop back out—providing a low-stakes way to practice speaking publicly in small bursts. “Sometimes it turns the discussion in a different direction, depending on what the person has added,” she says. “It keeps them on their toes looking for an opportunity or for something that they might want to add to the conversation.” 

Over time, these quick hits of public speaking bolster students’ confidence and willingness to take risks. In the process, public speaking shifts from something they’re required to do into something they might even choose to do themselves.