Speaking Activities › Talk for a Minute
Talk for a minute — a speaking game for the classroom
One child talks. Everyone else counts. The speaker takes a topic and keeps going for the time on the board with no hesitation, no repetition and no filler words — while the class listens for every um, er and like. It is the simplest way to make a class listen to how someone is speaking rather than only to what they are saying.
What is the talk-for-a-minute game?
The talk-for-a-minute game is a speaking activity in which one child speaks on a given topic, without pausing and without repeating themselves, until the time runs out. The rules are the whole point: taking away the fillers forces a speaker to plan a sentence ahead while they are still saying the current one, which is exactly the skill that makes someone fluent.
How do you run it, step by step?
Put a topic on the board and give the class their job first — count the fillers on your fingers. Start the timer. The speaker talks until it runs out; nobody interrupts. At the end, ask the class for the total and, more usefully, for the word: everybody has one, and hearing yours named is what actually changes it. Three or four speakers is a starter.
Should it really be a whole minute?
Not at first. Thirty seconds is long enough to be hard and short enough not to be frightening, which is why it is the default here. Twenty seconds suits Year 2 and 3, or any class trying it for the first time. Build up to forty-five and sixty once the class can fill the time without padding — a full minute of unbroken talk is a genuinely demanding target for Year 6.
Which year groups is it for?
It works from Year 2 to Year 9 (US grades 2–8). Younger children need concrete, personal topics — a place, a pet, a favourite meal — and a short turn. Older children can take abstract ones and can be pushed on structure: a beginning, two points, and an ending they have actually planned rather than trailing off when the timer stops.
From the classroom
The trap is the buzzer. Let the class shout when they hear um and the speaker stops speaking — you have built a game about being interrupted, and the confident children will play it while everyone else goes quiet. Counting on fingers instead keeps the room silent and the speaker going, and the total still lands at the end. The other thing that changes it completely is thirty seconds of thinking time before the first speaker starts, with everyone jotting three things. Without it you get thirty seconds of padding from every child; with it you get actual content, and the fillers drop on their own because nobody is searching for the next thing to say. And pick the topic for a nervous speaker rather than letting them choose — choosing is one more thing to be anxious about in front of everyone.
What counts as hesitation, repetition and filler?
Keep it simple or you will spend the lesson arbitrating. Filler words are the countable ones — um, er, like, so, basically, you know. Hesitation is a silence long enough that everyone notices. Repetition means saying the same word or idea again because you have run out, not the ordinary repeating that normal speech needs. With a young class, count fillers only.
Can I choose the topics?
Three ways. Pick a ready-made set — all about me, school life, silly stuff, big ideas or strong opinions. Generate your own by typing a subject and getting speaking topics on it, pitched at your class's age, so the oracy starter sits inside the lesson you are already teaching rather than beside it: type the Romans, or rivers, or kindness. Or write your own straight in. You see the full list and can edit any of it before the class does.
Can I print it?
Yes — two sheets, because the speaker and the audience are doing different jobs. The speaker's card has room for the topic, three things they could say, and the word they keep saying. The listener's tally is a grid for counting the slips, which turns the class's listening task into something they hold.
| Use it for | How | How long |
|---|---|---|
| An oracy starter | Four speakers, 30 seconds each, class counts | 5 minutes |
| Presentation practice | Print the speaker's card, plan first, then talk | 25 minutes |
| Revision out loud | Generate topics on the unit you are teaching | 15 minutes |
| A spare five minutes | Straight in, silly topics, no planning | 5 minutes |
Do I need an account?
No. The setup screen and the worked example are both open, so you can see exactly what you would be running, and model it to a class, before anyone asks you for anything. Starting the activity uses a free trial token, and a Sage Pro subscription lifts the limit.
Free to try, and no sign-up to look around.
More speaking activities
Try Speak Like… for the same fluency work in character, Rebuttal Pong for a structured debate, or see all seventeen in Speaking Activities.
Written by a practising primary school teacher, who built Sage Teachers to use in their own classroom. Every activity here is free to try with no sign-up. Talk for a Minute is the name of this game on Sage Teachers; it is not affiliated with, or connected to, any broadcast programme of a similar name.