Speech Refinement Today

Overview

Students practise composing for a specific audience by giving and receiving structured peer feedback on their speech drafts. They then revise and begin oral rehearsal, using clear criteria for clarity, evidence, and persuasiveness.

Learning intentions

Students will:

• share their speech draft with a partner and provide respectful, specific feedback using a guide
• assess their partner’s speech for clarity of argument, use of evidence, and persuasiveness for the intended audience
• revise their own speech draft based on feedback, focusing on language choices and text structure
• rehearse delivery using pacing, eye contact, and vocal expression, then set a short practice goal

Success criteria

Students can:

• use the peer feedback guide to give two strengths and one actionable improvement
• explain how evidence supports the argument and whether the audience is clearly considered
• revise their speech to make the message clearer and more persuasive (e.g., sharper claim, stronger evidence integration, improved cohesion)
• rehearse their speech with a deliberate pace and appropriate vocal expression, maintaining eye contact for key moments

Curriculum links

• EN5-ECA-01: Students craft personal, creative and critical texts by controlling language forms and features to shape meaning for a range of audiences, including speaking skills for delivery.
• EN5-ECB-01: Students use planning, monitoring, revising and reflecting to refine composition, including revising after feedback and reflecting on rehearsal.
• EN5-URB-01: Students evaluate how texts represent ideas and experiences, and how choices can affirm or challenge values and attitudes for an audience.

Lesson structure (45 minutes)

1. 0–4 min · Retrieval + goal setting. Teacher displays the lesson focus (peer feedback → revision → rehearsal) and briefly revisits the three review targets: clarity of argument, evidence, persuasiveness for the audience; students write one personal goal for today.

2. 4–10 min · Model feedback moves. Teacher shows a short anonymised speech excerpt (teacher-written or compiled) and models how to use the feedback guide to identify:

• a clear claim/argument line
• evidence (specific example/data/quote) and how it connects to the claim
• audience-aware language (e.g., tone, direct address, values appeal) Students practise by highlighting which sentence is the claim and circling evidence in pairs.

3. 10–23 min · Peer feedback round 1 (structured). Students swap drafts with a partner and complete the peer feedback guide as they read:

• Strength 1 (argument clarity): What line/thought is strongest and why?
• Strength 2 (evidence): What evidence is effective and how does it support the argument?
• Improvement (one change): Suggest one specific revision (e.g., reorder ideas, add/replace evidence, adjust audience address or persuasive technique) Teacher circulates, prompting students to refer to concrete parts of the draft rather than general comments.

4. 23–29 min · Quick monitoring check + revision start. Students return to their own drafts and reread using their partner’s improvement as the revision focus. Teacher gives a time signal and asks students to make at least one concrete change and note what they changed and why (brief margin comment).

5. 29–40 min · Oral rehearsal in two takes. In pairs, students rehearse their revised speech for 45–60 seconds:

• Take 1: student performs while partner listens using a delivery checklist (pacing, eye contact, vocal expression).
• Take 2: after partner feedback, student performs again with one adjustment only (e.g., slower pacing at the turning point, stronger projection on key phrases, more eye contact in the opening and conclusion). Teacher conducts brief individual conferences with selected students during the rehearse loop, focusing on students who need guidance with pacing, argument clarity, or evidence integration. Others continue rehearsal silently between turns or rehearse in small groups as directed.

6. 40–45 min · Exit reflection. Students complete a short exit ticket:

• One revision I made that improved persuasiveness (evidence/argument/audience)
• One delivery skill I will practise for my presentation (pacing/eye contact/vocal expression)

Resources

• Student speech draft (written, near-final)
• Peer feedback guide (printed or digital)
• Delivery checklist for listening
• Timer or slide countdown
• Highlighters/pens for annotating drafts
• Margin “change note” template (2–3 sentence prompts)
• Exit ticket slips or digital form

Assessment

• Formative during peer feedback: teacher checks that comments reference specific lines and target clarity, evidence, and persuasiveness.
• Formative during revision: teacher monitors that students make at least one concrete, purposeful edit tied to feedback.
• Exit ticket: collects evidence of revision decisions and rehearsal goals to guide next lesson conferences.

Differentiation

• Support: provide sentence starters on the peer feedback guide (e.g., “Your argument becomes clearest when…”, “The evidence could be stronger by adding… because…”; “For this audience, you could…”).
• Support: offer a “revision menu” with limited options (move claim earlier, embed evidence with a linking sentence, add a direct address to the audience, refine a persuasive device).
• Extension: students add an additional persuasive technique (e.g., rhetorical question, parallelism, strategic contrast) and justify the audience impact in their margin note.
• EAL/SEN: allow oral rehearsal to be recorded on devices or practised with a reduced draft length; encourage one focus change per rehearsal take to reduce cognitive load.

Assessment for learning notes (for the teacher)

• During conferences, ask: “What is your one-sentence argument?” “Which evidence proves it?” “Where will the audience feel the value shift?” then suggest one targeted revision or one delivery adjustment.