Well Spoken: Teaching Speaking to All Students, Second Ed.
By Erik Palmer
(Routledge, 2025 – Learn more)
Reviewed by Jeny Randall
A student stands and says empathically, “Don’t do that to your brother!” She sits, her face a mixture of pride and embarrassment as she looks to the student at her left.
“Don’t do that to your brother,” the next student admonishes.
In this quick brain break, students are using an exercise from Erik Palmer’s pvlegs.com to practice adding life to their speaking.
I had been using Palmer’s PV LEGS framework for several years as part of a research seminar for sixth grade. In the final unit, students prepare an oral presentation for administrators, teachers, parents, and peers. The exercises and lessons on Palmer’s website supported students in becoming more articulate and confident speakers.
However, when I picked up the second edition of Palmer’s Well Spoken: Teaching Speaking to All Students, I found a wealth of information and activities for teaching speaking that stretch beyond the resources on his website.
We’re busy. Why focus on speaking?
Palmer makes a strong case for direct instruction in speaking, even while acknowledging the teacher’s already-full plate. “Simply put,” he writes, “oral communication is our predominant way of communicating” (p. 4). He demonstrates the ways that speaking instruction reinforces writing instruction and reminds readers that speaking standards are often overlooked in the face of preparing students for standardized testing.
Most importantly, Palmer illustrates the ways speaking skills give students agency and confidence in both the classroom and the workplace. Citing both the National Association of Colleges and Employers and a study of Silicon Valley CEOs, Palmer notes that employers seek oral communication skills above writing skills in new employees, stressing the need for competency in both interpersonal communication and presentation.
Building a speech
Enter Well Spoken. In the second edition, Palmer stresses the subtle shift from “public speaking” to “all speaking” by introducing and providing activities to practice the skills needed not just in speeches, but any time a speaker gives thought to what they are going to say.
Part two of Well Spoken focuses on building a speech. While this framework was new to me, I found it as thoughtfully laid out as his ideas for teaching presentation skills. Palmer notes the ways that “teaching speaking reinforces teaching writing” (p. 9). Analyzing the audience, for example, is important both in crafting an essay and building a speech.
Palmer presents other aspects of speech building, including strategies for strong openings and closings, organizational structures, visual aids, and the speaker’s appearance. Through the use of graphic organizers, activities, and questionnaires, Palmer’s insights add relevance and fun to work already happening in the classroom through writing instruction.
As a teacher, Palmer asked students to give a speech on a landmark Supreme Court case. While he provides other anecdotes that help readers picture lessons, this example carries through the text, helping readers see how each aspect of speech building and performance links into a project.
While teachers of all grade levels will find value in Well Spoken, teachers outside of the middle grades will need to do some work adapting the framework to their students’ needs.
Performing a speech
While readers may be familiar with the PV LEGS framework explored in section three: “Performing a Speech,” Well Spoken moves into more nuanced territory – for instance, working with students to normalize nervousness as a way to overcome distracting habits such as rocking side to side or twirling their hair. In addition, Palmer explores ways to set expectations for the class as an audience and to take advantage of opportunities to teach civil discourse.
Each chapter in section three ends with practice ideas – short activities such as impromptu two-minute speeches and ways to weave speaking skills into classroom discussions. For instance, after introducing the concept of Voice or “making every word heard,” Palmer outlines how teachers can support students in ensuring that their voice is heard during class discussions. Having students repeat what they said rather than the teacher amplifying student voice, ensures that students both practice this vital speaking skill and develop agency in the classroom.
“Putting Theory into Practice” (section 4) recommends when to introduce speaking skills and ways to reinforce and practice them through the year. A chapter on evaluation dissects rubrics and demonstrates how to grade an oral presentation. Palmer also provides rubrics to assess ninth-grade speaking skills with the thought that teachers can adapt them for younger or older classes. In addition, he provides templates for organizing your own.
While the examples and case studies focus largely on middle school, at the end of section four, Palmer offers a great range of activities for K–12 across subject areas. From fun “brain break” or community building activities to class projects, each activity is linked to the speaking skills it supports.
Speaking digitally
New to the second edition, Palmer’s fifth section on “Speaking Digitally” revisits earlier aspects such as building visual aids and analyzing audience within a digital context. However, Palmer has done significant research here, and his nuanced understanding of digital versus in-person presentation is well-explained and illuminating.
For example, he illustrates the ways presenters need to account for screen size, audience attention span, and eye contact in a digital environment. He also delves into elements of digital presentation that are unique such as including sound bites and choosing a background. Similar to the previous section, Palmer ends with a comprehensive list of opportunities for including digital presentation in the classroom.
If you’re still puzzling over how or why to integrate speaking instruction into your classroom, the FAQ section at the end of the book addresses many questions – from differentiation, to addressing parent concerns, to acknowledging teachers’ own fears about public speaking.
Above all, Palmer comes back to purpose. He reminds readers that communication is the point; tools, digital or in person, are there to support students in becoming confident and skilled oral communicators.
An educator for twenty years, Jeny Randall currently serves as the middle school director and language arts teacher at Saratoga Independent School in upstate New York. Jeny is a Responsive Classroom certified teacher who reviews regularly for Middle Web. School breaks find Jeny headed into the wilderness with her family and a good book.
