AVID Public Speaking Activities - 30 Second Speeches and Fun Debate Topics

Giving students plenty of public speaking practice is important, but thinking of fun topics takes time! These 2 activities (plus 5 extra freebie prompts) come with a combined total of 80 fun and engaging speech topics for your students to practice those very important college and career readiness skills! Great for AVID, ESL students, counseling, college and career, speech, or just used as a fun brain break in any class!

FUN DEBATES

Directions

• Share expectations of respectful debating
• Organize students into small groups or create one large circle
• Read the debate prompt out loud
• Students choose a side and think of at least one reason why they chose that side
• When students have at least one reason they hold up a thumb
• Choose a student to begin the debate

What's Included

• 1 directions slide
• 1 expectations slide for students
• 50 debate topis with agreeing/disagreeing chart and sentence starters

30 SECOND SPEECHES

What's Included:

• 2 directions pages
• 25 topics with silent 30 second prep timers
• 25 thirty second speech timer slides

Directions:

• Put students into groups or breakout rooms of 4-6 students
• Go over the directions with students:
• Wait for the impromptu topic to show up on the screen (ex: tell your group 3 different ways to eat an oreo)
• Decide who in the group will start and that student will have 30 seconds to prepare for their speech after the topic is revealed
• After 30 seconds the student will present their topic for 30 seconds

Optional Points:

• Secretly give points/take away points from group members on a small whiteboard or notebook paper
• Groups can earn by: Focusing on good voice, being creative with their responses, eye contact, posture, using an opening/closing statement, and making good points for your topic
• Groups can lose points by: being a poor audience member, having poor posture, not using good voice, not using eye contact, using filler words: like, um, so, okay, yeah, kinda…

Click HERE to see our other public speaking resources!

Click HERE to see our other AVID resources!

*Note this product may be used in brick an mortar classes as well as virtual systems like Outschool.