Gamifying Impromptu Speech for ESL/EFL Students

Abstract

[EN] This paper outlines an impromptu speech activity entitled “Dented Helmet vs. Spambot” intended as part of any introductory public speaking course. The activity is designed to overcome specific affective and cognitive challenges of ESL/EFL students, in particular Chinese learners, and is inspired by the principles of gamification (Kapp, 2012) with core gaming elements such as “freedom to fail”, “rapid feedback”, and “storytelling”, The activity requires “Rory’s Story Cubes” (a set of nine six-sided dice designed to spark creativity) and a special set of slides. An exploratory assessment of the effectiveness of our proposed activity was conducted on a sample of Chinese EFL sophomores enrolled in an international branch campus of a U.S. university in China, with 81 students completing our questionnaire. Overall, our findings provided some initial support to the effectiveness of our activity in terms of strenghtening students’ ability to communicate orally “off the cuff”, promoting students’ understanding of the role of storytelling in effective presentations, fostering students’ understanding of the major organizational formats used in organizing speeches, and increasing students’ awareness of their nonverbal communication during oral presentations.