Resumen: [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.
