I devised the following activity in 2014 with my senior class and since it proved a huge success among the students, I’ve put it forward with my Linguistico senior class who accepted it willingly. Once a week three students present to the rest of the class a TED Talk of their choice. This activity is meant to make them improve their competence of public speaking and their oral skills for the final exam.  By Wednesday 5.pm. they are required to post the link of the chosen TedTalk video in a Google shared document, so that everybody can watch it and come to class ready to ask a question. 

ASSIGNMENT: During your presentation – max. 10 minutes:

1. 1. Introduce the Speaker
   2. Introduce and summarize the main ideas of Talk (you can use a Power Point uploaded onto Google Drive or Google slides or Prezi or Emaze)
   3. Show an excerpt (max 2 minutes)
   4. Express your personal point of view on the topic (critical sense and thinking).
   5. The teacher & schoolmates will ask you questions – 5 minutes after your 10 m’ speech.

Here are the links to the TedTalks websites. If you’ve got an iPad, there’s also the App TedTalk with subtitles.

http://www.ted.com/playlists/129/ted_under_20  by teenagers.  

http://www.ted.com Official website.

Here’s my TEDTALK PRESENTATION RUBRIC

NOW, WRITE YOUR NAME & TITLE OF TEDTALK, paste the link of the video and of your presentation in the Padlet I’ve just created. This way they’re all shareable & visible by the “commissario esterno”, as a sort of class Portfolio for the exam. 

I must tell you that I’m enjoying your presentations very much and I’m very proud of you all, as I’m completely aware of the tremendous improvement you’ve made in these four years together. Even the shiest ones among you, have surprised me and the whole class, while you were talking with self-confidence and enthusiasm about something that sparked your curiosity and was, therefore, meaningful and relevant to you since not chosen by the teacher 🙂  Some topics were totally new to me and I’ve discovered new lands and learnt new things, which is what I love the most about my job.

So, thank you and … keep it up 🙂