Scout Leadership Course Session Activity Notes

Session activity

Speaking and Listening: Creature Lecture

Time to allocate for this activity

15 minutes

Resources required

Elevator Pitch cue cards.

Activity Notes

This short activity is designed to encourage Scouts to speak confidently. It requires them to speak clearly without any embarrassment of peer judgment and criticism. The activity is run outside in an environment where living creatures can be found.

The task (10 mins)

Each Scout will be given a task to tell to an animal. The can spend a few moments thinking about what they want to say and then go outside to find their animal. This could be a bird, close or distant, a farm animal, pet, insect or wild creature - whatever they can find. The object of the exercise is to tell the creature the message in an appropriate way - speaking quietly so as not to startle it, or loudly if it is far away, or slowly if the animal appears not to understand.

This activity is all about appropriate voices and language - it is just a bit of fun really! The reaction of the animal can be studied and discussed - did the animal seem to listen, or was it frightened and moved away? How could you approach the animal differently? Try again with a different animal.

Invite Scouts to talk about their experience with the rest of the group provide feedback as appropriate. Encourage comments about tone of voice, loudness of voice, type of language used.

Conclusion (3 minutes)

Point out that there are many ways of speaking for a specific purpose. Invite comments and brain-storm a quick list of other types of speaking such as intructional, conversational, informal, speechmaking, demanding, warning, convincing, arguing, presenting facts. Conclude with the statement from Karl Popper:
"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood."