Lesson video

Hi there, I'm Mr. Buckingham, and it's so nice to see you here for today's lesson.

Today, we're going to use all the knowledge that we've learned in this unit to make a speech based on our essay about the effect of climate change on the polar regions.

I think you're going to really enjoy this lesson.

So let's make a start.

Today's lesson is called "Making a speech about the effects of climate change on the polar regions," and it comes from a unit called Polar regions, essay writing.

By the end of today's lesson, you will have planned and performed a persuasive speech about the effects of climate change on the polar regions, using emotive language to appeal to your audience.

For this lesson, you will want to have access to the essay that you've written in previous lessons.

If you've got that with you, let's begin.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

A speech is the communication of someone's thoughts through words to an audience.

And emotive language is language designed to show strong emotion or to make the listener feel a certain way.

Body language is the way people communicate their thoughts, feelings, and emotions through their movements and gestures without using words.

Here's our lesson outline for today.

We're going to start off by planning a persuasive speech and then we'll be making the speech.

So we've now completed, as you know, a persuasive essay.

And in our essay, we made the argument that more must be done to protect the polar regions that are threatened by climate change.

And we know that our aim was to persuade our reader to agree with that view.

And we provided evidence and we used a formal tone in order to sound authoritative, and that made us more persuasive.

So have a read now of your essay to your partner just to refresh your memory and have a go performing it out loud to them.

And I want you to see if they're persuaded by your argument.

So pause the video and read your essay to your partner and see if they're persuaded by what you've said.

Well done.

Good reading.

And I am absolutely certain that they will have been persuaded by your very authoritative essay that you've written.

Good job.

So now I want you to imagine that your local Member of Parliament, your local MP, comes to visit your school.

And as you know, our local MPs are responsible for representing our area and speaking in parliament about issues that affect local people and issues that affect the country as a whole.

So your local MP says that they want to hear children's opinions about things they should do, things they should speak in parliament about, things maybe they should go to the Prime Minister and try and persuade him or her to do in order to improve our country.

So you decide that you are going to make a speech about the effects of climate change on the polar regions to persuade the MP to get more done about this issue.

So how might your speech be different to the essay that you've written? And how might it be similar? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you or have a think on your own.

Well done.

Great job.

So your speech could use the same idea as your essay, of course.

However, it might be different in a few important ways.

First of all, your speech will probably be shorter than your essay.

Our essays were quite long, weren't they? Four whole paragraphs.

But you're going to have to summarise the argument quite quickly in your speech.

Your MP might not have very long to talk to you, so you might have to say the speech quite quickly.

Also, unlike an essay, a speech is performed usually from memory using just notes.

We won't just be reading the essay.

It's much more persuasive if we can speak from memory and just say our ideas based on a few notes.

We might also use more emotive language in our speech, and you'll be showing how strongly you feel about the issue in a slightly less formal way than you were in an essay.

So emotive language is language that shows your strong emotions or is intended to make the listener, the MP, feel a certain way or feel how strongly you feel about this issue.

So we can use slightly different language when making a speech compared to when we write an essay.

And finally you'll be able to persuade the audience, the MP, with your voice and your body language as well as what we're saying.

So remember in an essay, we don't have a voice or body language.

We just have our words.

But when we speak, we have the advantage that we can use our voice and our body to be even more persuasive and that will help our MP to understand how strongly we feel and how important it is that they act on this issue.

So can you decide whether each of these features relates to a speech or to an essay most strongly? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Good job.

So using body language is a speech.

Very formal language is likely to be an essay.

We'll still use quite formal language, but it'll be slightly more informal in a speech.

Long and detailed, it's probably an essay.

Our speech will have to be shorter.

Emotive language will be in a speech.

We're going to try and show our strong emotions and show the listener how strongly we feel about it.

And performed using notes is definitely a speech.

We're not just going to read our essay.

We're going to use notes to say our speech out loud.

Now as we've said, because a speech is spoken language, it might be more emotive than an essay.

Here's a sentence taken from an essay.

If serious action is not taken to prevent further ice melting, then polar habitats will be lost forever.

This is very clear and authoritative.

But it's not emotive.

It's not emotional.

It doesn't show us that we feel strongly or emotionally about this.

So here's what we might say in a speech.

If we do nothing and we allow even more of the polar ice to disappear, precious polar habitats could be destroyed and lost forever.

Can you see the difference there? Here, we've used emotive language to convey or show two things to our audience.

First of all, that we, the person, the speaker, feel very strongly about this issue, and that the situation is really desperate and that action is really needed.

So we've used these emotive pieces of language, like do nothing, even more, disappear, precious, destroyed, to show these two things to our listener.

And using emotive language like this can be really persuasive.

And that's why sometimes giving a speech might be more persuasive than just writing, like we did for our essay.

So which of these examples use emotive language that's appropriate to a speech? Pause the video and see what you can spot.

Well done.

Good job.

Hopefully, you spotted that it's probably B and C.

Let's read B.

It says, the polar regions are essential to combating the grave threat of climate change.

Look at those words essential and grave.

Really emotive pieces of vocabulary.

C says, when ancient permafrost melts, it releases carbon into the atmosphere with devastating consequences.

So ancient and devastating are both quite emotive there, saying this permafrost is very old and saying that if it releases its carbon, that's going to be incredibly bad for our climate.

So here we've used examples that really use emotive language in an effective way to show how strongly we feel and show the listener they really need to do something about this.

So here are some pieces of emotive language you might want to include in your speech.

We could use these words.

Devastating, appalling, horrifying, serious, dramatic, unacceptable.

Can you see how all of those are quite negative words? Here's some more.

We could use precious, vital, essential, necessary, imperative, vitally important.

There we're saying, something to think about, how important it is that we do something, how important it is to act.

So we've got some very negative words that we could use to describe the difficulties that it's going to cause us if the polar regions aren't protected.

And then we've got some more positive words that show how important it is that we act.

Can you think of any more words that might fit into either of those categories to give emotive language in our speech? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you.

Well done, I bet you thought of some fantastic words to add to both of those lists.

So as we said, some of these words are emotive words for the negative consequences of climate change.

We could say those consequences are appalling or unacceptable.

And some of these are emotive words for how important it is to act.

We could say it's absolutely imperative that we act.

It's vital that we act.

So we've got a wide range of emotive words here we could try and include in our speech.

So can you choose an appropriate piece of emotive language from the list to complete each of these passages? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

Good job.

Here's what we could have said.

If we do not take more serious action, there will be devastating consequences.

It is imperative that we do more to tackle this serious issue.

And the polar regions are absolutely vital for our climate.

They must be protected.

So we've used those emotive words to make our speech even more persuasive here.

Good job.

So our speech, as we said, is going to be shorter than our essay, but we still want to include the most important parts of our argument.

So what do we want the MP to know and what do we want them to think by the end of our speech? Even if we've only got one minute to say it, what do you want the MP to know and to think by the end of this speech? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you.

Well done.

Good thinking.

So here's what Aisha says.

She says, we want them to know that polar regions play a big role in regulating the climate and keeping the temperature down.

So if they disappear, there will be lots of consequences like sea-level rise.

And we want them to think that they need to go and persuade their government to do more to stop this happening.

So we've got some things we want them to know, information about climate change, and some things we want them to think, what action we think needs taking.

So we need to try and get both those features in to our very short speech.

So what are the essential points of the argument for your essay that you want to include in your speech in order to make sure that the MP knows and thinks what we want them to by the end of this speech? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Good thinking.

Maybe you thought of these.

First of all, the polar regions play an important role in regulating the climate.

Then, this role is being threatened by climate change that causes polar ice and permafrost to melt.

Then, if we don't do more about this, the effects of climate change will be worsened and there will be serious consequences for the planet.

And finally, doing more might involve taking action to cut emissions further and faster.

So here I've said, why are the polar regions important? How are they threatened? What are the problems with the threats they face? And what could doing more look like? And why should we do more? So there we've summarised just the very key points from our essay in a way that should be possible to present in a very short speech.

Really well done for your thoughts there.

So for the first task in this lesson, we're going to plan our speech and we're going to write the notes we'll use to give our speech.

I want you to just note down the key points of the argument you want to make with no more than four or five bullet points.

And I want you to make sure your chosen points will help the MP to understand what your concerns are and what you want to happen.

And you're going to include notes about the emotive language you want to include as well, including some of those brilliant words we looked at before.

Don't worry yet about practising the speech or saying it out aloud.

We'll do that in the second part of the lesson.

So for now, we're just writing the notes we need to perform that speech and to practise it as well.

So do not write in full sentences here.

Just use notes, including notes about the emotive language you want to include for your speech to the MP.

Pause the video and have a go at writing those notes.

Well done.

Fantastic job.

Here's an example of the notes you might have made.

I've said, polar regions equal absolutely vital, there's my emotive language, for regulating climate.

Ice reflects heat and permafrost stores carbon.

Crucial role threatened terribly by climate change, causing precious polar ice and ancient permafrost to melt.

If don't do more equals disastrous consequences, devastating sea-level rise and worsening of climate change.

And finally, imperative we take action.

Reduce emissions rapidly.

So notice all of this emotive language I've included, absolutely vital, precious, crucial, disastrous, rapidly, and so on.

All of these emotive words help show that I feel strongly about this issue and might make my listener, the MP, believe that they need to take action as well.

Really well done for making such clear notes.

That's going to really help you when you come to make the speech in the second part of this lesson.

So we're now going to practise and perform our persuasive speeches.

So before we make our speech, we need to practise.

And even people like politicians who make speeches all the time will very often rehearse their speeches many times before they make them.

So we don't need to memorise exact words when we're doing this.

We'll use our notes to remind us roughly what we want to say.

So we need to practise making those notes into sentences out loud.

So for example, here's a note.

Imperative we take action.

Reduce emissions rapidly.

I could say that out loud like this.

It is absolutely imperative that we take action by reducing our emissions rapidly! So here, it's totally okay if I say that different ways different times.

I can use different words each time I say that note out loud, and that is fine.

We just want to make sure we get our message across clearly and we say the argument that we've planned in our notes.

So we also need to think carefully about how we use our voice during our speech.

So we need to speak clearly and at an appropriate volume so that every single word we say can be heard.

Remember, the MP might be over the other side of the classroom or even the school hall and they need to hear every word we say.

And we can emphasise certain words to show that they're important.

I'm sure you're used to hearing your teacher do that when they read stories to you.

It's a really good way of showing that certain words are really important.

We can also use our tone of voice to show our passion, and we want the MP to be really able to tell that we feel strongly about this issue.

So I'm sure you've heard people speaking passionately before to show their emotion in their tone of voice.

And finally, sometimes changing our speed of the way we speak, going fast and then slow, can be very powerful as well.

You might say some of your speech very quickly like this and then some of it very slowly like I've just done.

So all of these techniques can be really useful as we are performing a speech to make sure our reader really understands how strongly we feel about it, but also keeping them engaged in what we're saying as well.

So I'd like you to practise saying this small piece of speech in the green box aloud in different ways.

First of all, I want you to try saying it without any of the techniques we've just talked about, and then I want you to try saying it another time, using the techniques we've discussed, speaking clearly with good volume, emphasising important words, and using your tone of voice to show passion, and varying your speed.

So this is a way of checking how do all of those techniques improve our speech? So try saying it without any of those techniques and then try saying it with those techniques and see if you can spot the difference.

Pause the video and have a go at practising saying this piece of the speech aloud.

Well done.

Great job.

I hope you spotted the difference there.

Let me show you how I would do it.

The first time without any of the techniques might sound like this.

It is absolutely imperative that we take action by reducing our emissions rapidly.

Not very good.

What if I add those techniques in? I might say this.

It is absolutely imperative that we take action by reducing our emissions rapidly! Hopefully you saw there, I was emphasising certain words, I was trying to speak with passion, I was speaking with good volume, and I was trying to show that I was maybe speeding up and slowing down a little bit as well at different places in that speech.

Here's what Izzy said.

I could really tell the difference.

I emphasised the word rapidly and I slowed down to say absolutely imperative.

And I think it made me sound really determined.

So hopefully you're seeing how using our voice in different ways can make us really persuasive when we give a speech.

Now you also want to use our body language as well as we give our speech to be even more persuasive.

And your body language is just the way we communicate through our movements and our gestures.

It's like another layer of communication on top of just speaking.

Our body and our faces and our hands in particular do things which communicate as well.

So it's about how we stand as well as how we move our hands and our faces.

So your body language can show that you feel confident or nervous or excited and so on.

It can express all of these emotions.

So what do we want our body language to show in our speech? What are we trying to convey or show to our reader about how we feel as we give this speech through our body language? Pause the video and have a think and a chat with the person next to you.

Well done.

Good thinking.

So our body language should show that we are confident and passionate and determined.

We might not feel those things.

So we might have to try and act as if we are feeling those, using our body language.

So let's practise saying this same piece of the speech aloud again.

First of all, say it standing completely still and see how that feels.

And then, try and show the following things using your body language.

Try and show your passion, show your determination, and show your confidence.

Pause the video and have a go at saying it twice, once without good body language and once with good body language.

See if you can spot the difference.

Have a go.

Well done.

Great ideas.

So hopefully you spotted that it does make a big difference.

So I'll try and do it here.

Without good body language, I could say this.

It is absolutely imperative that we take action by reducing our emissions rapidly.

I looked a bit boring there.

My face wasn't moving.

My hands were doing nothing.

What if I do it with better body language? I could say, it is absolutely imperative that we take action by reducing our emissions rapidly! Now I might have got a bit far there, but you could see my face was moving, my hands were moving.

I was trying to be animated and passionate and to show that I'm confident in what I'm saying because I believe it to be true.

Now you might not believe it to be true, and that is fine, but we're trying to show that we believe it to be true in the way that we're speaking through our body language as well as all those vocal voice techniques that we've discussed.

Here's what Lucas said about his body language.

He says, I found I was making a fist and pounding it in the air to emphasise my points.

I also tried to stand up straight with my head held high.

That's going to really show the MP, isn't it, that we're confident about what we're saying.

So hopefully you managed to do the same there as well.

Good job.

So now it's time to practise our speeches in full.

So using your notes, I want you to try and say your speech out loud as full sentences.

And try and include the emotive language that you've planned in your notes.

You're going to use the voice techniques that we've discussed, speaking clearly, emphasising important words, varying your pace, and using your tone to show passion.

And I want to use your body language to show that passion, determination, and confidence.

And once you've tried a couple of times on your own, you might want to share your speech with your partner.

We're going to perform it to the whole class later on, so this is a chance to have a go performing to a very small audience.

So pause the video and spend lots of time practising your speech using all the techniques that we've discussed.

Well done.

Great job.

Let's just take a moment here to feed back to our partners.

First of all, did their speech make sense? That's the most important thing, isn't it? And did it include that emotive language? Did they use their voice well to show passion? And did they use their body language well? And together, can you agree on one thing to improve when you give your speech to the class? Pause the video quickly and have a chat to your partner about the target you're going to make and answering these questions together.

Have a go.

Well done.

Great job.

Here's what Sofia set as her target with her partner.

She says, I'm going to try and use my voice to emphasise important words more and I'm going to stand up straight to look more confident.

So Sofia's got an idea now of what she'll do when she performs her speech to her class to really be more persuasive and authoritative and therefore to make the MP think they need to do something as well.

So now we're ready to make our speeches.

Now your teacher might want to take on the role of the MP or maybe one of you could do that instead.

And I want you to use your notes and all of the techniques we've practised to perform your speech to the class.

Now if you're nervous, don't worry, that's completely normal and your teachers will tell you that too.

The more you do things like this, the more comfortable you will feel.

And remember, we're in a great position here because we've done an essay all about this topic.

We know loads about it.

We've practised saying this speech lots of times.

And we've got lots of techniques to show our confidence, even if we don't feel it.

So we're really well prepared to do our very best job here, even if we don't quite feel it.

And it's really important to say, you don't have to feel confident in order to look confident.

You can kind of pretend to look confident using your body language, using your voice, even if you don't feel it, and people around you will think that you are confident, even if inside you're a little bit nervous.

So remember, we're trying to be persuasive, so really focus on showing some passion here.

So enjoy yourself, try and say your speech to the class, and use all these techniques to try and really persuade this MP that they need to do something to help protect the polar regions.

Have a go now.

Well done.

Fantastic job.

So here's an example of a speech you might have made.

I'm going to perform in role as Andeep and I'm trying to use my vocal techniques to show the passion here.

So here's what Andeep said.

The polar regions are absolutely vital for regulating our climate.

Their ice reflects heat and their permafrost stores carbon.

Unfortunately, this crucial role is threatened terribly by climate change, which is causing precious polar ice and ancient permafrost to melt.

If we don't do more to prevent this, there will be disastrous consequences, including devastating sea-level rise and a worsening of climate change.

It is imperative we take action by reducing our emissions rapidly! So I tried to show my passion in my voice there and I tried to vary my speed a little bit as well to try and show the emphasis on different words here.

I hope you really enjoyed making your speech there.

Really good job.

I bet your passion came across really well there and I'm certain that the MP will have been persuaded by what you said.

Good work.

So summarise our learning in this lesson.

We said that when we wrote our essay, we used a formal tone.

And we've used this essay now to inspire a speech on the same subject.

And here, we used more emotive language to persuade our audience.

Before we give a speech, we know it's helpful to plan our ideas and to orally rehearse what we might say.

And finally, as we deliver the speech, we try to speak clearly and at a good volume, showing passion and positivity with our words and our body language.

Really fantastic job in this lesson.

I hope you really enjoyed making this speech and I hope you enjoyed learning in this unit all about the polar regions and about what more could be done to protect them.

Great work and love to see you again in a future lesson.

Goodbye.