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Impromptu Speech Topics

An impromptu speech is one of the hardest to give, especially for those who don't have much experience in public speaking. However, it's one of the most important and useful in one's life, because it helps building or polishing speaking skills and teaches you how to handle yourself in an unexpected situation.

Coming up with impromptu speech topics and learning how to give impromptu speeches, in general, isn't easy. Therefore, today we want to give you some tips to help you change that and ease the process for you. But first, let's define what exactly an impromptu speech is.

What is an impromptu speech?

It's a speech that you need to make without any preparation. There's a chance you've already found yourself asked to give an impromptu speech a couple of times: for example, during some kind of celebration.

If you haven't given any impromptu speeches in your life, this doesn't mean that you won't be asked to give one in the future - for example, at someone's birthday, during a business meeting, and so on. Of course, it's hard to ace such speech without any preparation - and when you don't have any experience in it. That's why such speeches are often assigned to high school and college students: to help them develop communications skills and to make them more prepared for such situations.

How to give an impromptu speech?

If you are a high school or a college student, most likely you'll be warned by your professor a couple of days before. Though sometimes teachers and professors do ask students to give such speeches without any preparation, this isn't a common thing - and so you have an opportunity to prepare yourself.

You can do so by coming up with a few topics for impromptu speech beforehand. If you know what you might be asked to talk about, try focusing your topics around this subject. If you do not know that yet, however, come up with a couple of topics that would be interesting to you and try preparing quick speeches for them in your head. This could be a speech itself or just a brief outline - the point here is to practice analyzing the topic and coming up with some things to say about it.

Of course, you should keep the audience in mind. If you know that your professor won't be too harsh on you and your fellow students would take that well too, you can come up with some funny impromptu speech topics, for example. On the other hand, when a professor is too strict, practicing while using only funny topics might not be a good idea at all.

Keep in mind that even when you don't know exactly what you'll be asked to talk about, there are still ways to narrow the subjects down and to come with good impromptu speech topics for the upcoming class and for the audience that would be present.

Always try to come up with at least three statements for each topic. If you do that, you'll have most of your speech ready as you can spend the rest of the speech coming up with arguments to support that statements. It's also good to think of the finishing statement for your speech. It has to be strong as the audience memorizes the last statements the best - and so it could be a great way to impress the listeners.

Despite all these tips are really useful, they still might not be enough to help you come up with topics for your impromptu speech. Sometimes it's better to learn by example - that's why we've prepared 30 impromptu speech ideas to inspire you.

30 impromptu speech topics for high school and college

My three favorite wild animals
Why are my parents special
One of the most memorable days in my life
The best surprise I had
What would I spend a million dollars on
Why sports are important
What I've learned from comic books
How would I change the education system
Why books are important
How to make your parents proud
What is my dream job
What famous person I would have dinner with
My favorite book
The smartest pop culture character
What would I change if I ruled the world
Why healthy eating matters
What person inspires me
How to save money
How to achieve your goals
How to organize your time
How to succeed in college
What would I do on a rainy day
How hobbies can be useful to you
Things that scare me
Why I like my town
Why holidays are important
Three great things about the Internet
How to succeed in life
How do I measure success
How to make the most out of college years.

Now you see how impromptu speech ideas look like. Some of them are very simple, some might require some additional research and deep thinking. Moreover, you could always look for some more speech ideas online if you feel like you need more inspiration.

In general, coming up with impromptu speech topics is much easier than coming up with persuasive speech topics, for example. Usually, you have more flexibility in it and don't have a specific goal (for example, to persuade the audience in something). But while all you need to do is to share some information or to give your opinion on a certain topic, this still doesn't mean that you shouldn't do your best to deliver your impromptu speech as well as possible.

So take some time, try to come up with a couple of strong topics, prepare, and don't forget to rehearse. Practicing this at home could help you greatly and make you more prepared both for assigned impromptu speeches and for unexpected ones.