Rate Your Own Rate: Conversation Self-Check

What's in this activity

• Talk for one minute about anything. Then rate your speech rate from one to five, where one is very slow.
• Describe your route home. Stop at thirty seconds, rate yourself, then finish and rate yourself again.
• Tell your partner a short story. Have them rate your rate too, then compare the two numbers.
• Talk about something exciting. Notice whether the rate climbs, and say exactly where it happened.
• Explain a set of instructions. Say how many times you rushed a word and what you were feeling each time.
• Answer a question you have answered many times before. Say whether familiar answers come out faster.
• Talk about a subject you find difficult. Rate the rate, then rate how hard it was to keep it down.
• Say the same two sentences three times: fast, normal, and slow. Say which one you would use in class.
• Have a two-minute conversation. Rate yourself at the end of every turn without stopping the conversation.
• Talk into a recorder for a minute, then listen back and rate what you hear against what you remember.