We continued our unit on public speaking with a mini-lesson on filler words (um, uh, like, so...) and some practice becoming more self-aware of when we use them.

Students gave short, one-minute mini-speeches at their tables, but their audience members had very specific (if not odd) instructions: every time they heard the speaker use a filler word, they stood up quickly and quietly and then sat back down. Because most of us don't pay that much attention to the words we're actually using, many are not aware how frequently they use such filler words.

As such, students in the classroom looked more like popping pop-corn kernels than students: up, down, up down, up, down, up down.

The common consensus: "I didn't realize how frequently I said those things."

Tomorrow, we'll figure out why we're so prone to such filler words and even begin working on a couple of techniques to minimize how frequently they appear in our own speech.