A Low-Stakes Public-Speaking Game for High School Students

When students have public speaking opportunities in the classroom—discussions, presentations, etc.—they find themselves in the unenviable position of trying to exhibit all the facets of effective public speaking while also being knowledgeable and insightful, all for a grade. For some students, this is no problem at all. Some students thrive on the opportunity to take the spotlight, but others do not. For some students, these moments where it feels like everyone is watching, listening, and judging can be incredibly overwhelming.

But what if we could offer students frequent, low-stakes public speaking opportunities to practice and learn how to feel OK in those moments? And what if we could gamify that experience to offer some additional motivation to take the risk of speaking in front of the class?

Enter the Um Game.

USING THE UM GAME TO BUILD SPEAKING SKILLS

The Um Game is an activity I’ve used to build students’ speaking skills in my high school English classes. Here’s how it works: A student speaks for a set amount of time on a given topic without using any filler words like “um” or “like.” This creates a fun, low-pressure way for students to practice public speaking, as it deprioritizes the content they are sharing—it isn’t something academic that they could get right or wrong—and encourages them to focus on poise, pacing, and confidence.

In my classroom, I have a bundle of index cards with everyday items written on them—trees, cheese, rain, sports, etc. Whenever there is an extra five minutes left at the end of class, I ask for any student volunteers to play the Um Game.

A student then comes up, selects their topic at random from the bundle of cards, and sets a personal goal for themselves: “I will speak for 60 seconds on the topic of trees.” Next, I set a timer on the board and remind the student of the rules of the Um Game: The student must talk about the assigned topic for the allotted time without saying “um,” “like,” or any other placeholder words.

Beyond just creating a low-stakes opportunity for public speaking, the Um Game helps students develop the important skill of speaking clearly, thoughtfully, and concisely to their audience. I find it helpful to remind the entire class of this before we begin the game, as it reinforces the purpose behind our practice.

CREATING A CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT THAT SUPPORTS PUBLIC SPEAKING

While the game is certainly lower stakes than a graded presentation, it can still feel overwhelming for some students. It is important to create a classroom culture that supports and encourages academic risk-taking for the game to be successful. For one, I offer students extra credit for volunteering for the game to show that I value their courage.

Before we ever play the game, we spend a chunk of our class time talking about the benefits of public speaking, the importance of doing so confidently, and how a simple game like this could make a difference. Students have shared that they could get overwhelmed and embarrassed when speaking, but by discussing it openly, they realized they weren’t alone in how they felt.

Once we actually begin to play the game, I want to again reinforce that I recognize students’ academic risk-taking, so the entire class always gives a round of applause to the volunteer both before and after their attempt. This helps keep an encouraging and celebratory energy around the game.

In addition to this positive recognition from the class, the randomness and banality of the speaking topics—turtles, blankets, hot chocolate, etc.—gives the game an air of whimsy that seems to bring down the pressure immediately and softens the blow of an unsuccessful attempt.

But what if, after months of work to build a supportive classroom environment for public speaking, you still have a number of students who have yet to participate in the game? One strategy I have used to address this is a twist on the classic pair-share technique.

As an opening warm-up activity, I put students in small groups and have each student take a quick turn speaking to their group about Um Game topics. I keep the time frame for each turn very short—30 seconds per speaker—and have the group do multiple rounds of speaking without any kind of evaluation attached to the activity.

The result is that slowly but surely, reluctant students begin to see speaking in front of the entire class as less and less of a leap from the small group speaking they are already doing on a regular basis.

GIVING EVERYONE AN OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE

Even with those adjustments to make the game less intimidating, there are sometimes still a few particularly introverted students that are reluctant to participate. To ensure that these students are still getting something valuable from the experience, I sometimes ask nonparticipating students to write reflections on the best techniques they observed during the game.

This approach (a) keeps nonparticipants engaged, (b) helps those nonparticipants understand the many techniques that go into public speaking, and (c) maintains our classroom culture of celebrating each other’s risk-taking.

EXPANDING ON THE UM GAME

Over the years, I have come to appreciate all the ways the Um Game can be scaled to ensure that every student who participates can feel a sense of accomplishment while also being challenged to move into their individual zone of proximal development.

While many students will struggle to speak extemporaneously for even 60 seconds, I often find a few students in every class who quickly master two or three minutes of extemporaneous public speaking. For those students, I have found some fun and creative ways to increase the challenge while also engaging the rest of the class.

Take, for instance, the speaker with well-developed poise and pacing who struggles to enunciate and maintain a comprehensible volume. With the student’s permission, I have a few of their peers create some low-level noise during the activity, forcing the speaker to enunciate and maintain a good speaking volume.

While the Um Game allows students to practice and be celebrated by their peers, it also reminds students that their learning in English class—argumentation, analysis, and so on—has real-world, embodied applications.