Words that buy you time
Nobody speaks for two minutes without pausing. The difference between a fluent speaker and a stuck one is what they say while they think.
Eight things speakers say to stay in control of a long turn. Match each to the job it does.
What a good two minutes sounds like
Bea · two minutes on her office, transcribed
Right — the unwritten rules. So, the written ones are boring: we have to log our hours, we mustn’t take client files home, we don’t have to be in before ten. Fine. Nobody breaks those.
The main one is about the kitchen. You don’t have to clean the machine, officially. But if you take the last coffee and you leave it, somebody will mention it to you, and they will mention it twice. How can I put this — it is not a rule, it is a test.
Another thing is meetings. You should arrive one minute late. Not five. One. If you arrive on time you are sitting alone with the manager and everybody knows you did that.
And this is the strange part. Nobody explains any of it. You are supposed to work it out in the first month, and the way you work it out is by getting one of them wrong.
Anyway, that is roughly it. Log your hours, clean the machine, and be one minute late.
Four questions about how Bea organised her two minutes — not about what she said.
1. She spends her first fifteen seconds on the written rules. Why start there?
2. She says The main one is… and later Another thing is… What are those doing?
3. She uses How can I put this — in the middle of the kitchen story. What has happened?
4. Her last sentence repeats three things in five seconds. Why?
The shape of a long turn
Bea’s two minutes are not improvised. They have five moves, and you can plan all five in ninety seconds before you start.
Put the five moves of a long turn into the order Bea used them.
Build your inventory
Task card · Planning · Individual · 6 minutes
You are about to speak for two minutes. Planning time is the single biggest predictor of how it goes, so use all of it.
A page of notes — not sentences. Words and phrases only, so that you speak rather than read.
- Two written rules of your workplace or course. Two unwritten ones.
- For each, the consequence of breaking it. This is what turns a list into a story.
- One rule that used to exist and does not now: We had to… but now we don’t have to.
- Three job words with the article attached: a supervisor, an intern, a first-aider.
- Two of the floor-holding phrases from the warm-up, written at the top where you can see them.
Unwritten rules are never certain, so you hedge them. One to three words per gap.
Nobody says it, but you arrive a few minutes early. It is not rule exactly — you do it, and nothing happens if you do not. But people notice. The one thing you really do is take somebody else’s mug. And on Fridays, apparently, you leave at four, though nobody has ever written that down.
The extended turn, twice
Task card · Speaking · Round one · 2 minutes each
Your partner has never been to your workplace and never will. Two minutes, no interruption, no notes read aloud.
Answer one question: What are the unwritten rules of your workplace?
- Start with the written rules and get through them in twenty seconds. Then contrast.
- At least six different modals across the turn, and at least one had to.
- Every job you mention gets its article: she is a…
- If you get stuck, use a floor-holding phrase. Do not stop, and do not apologise.
- Finish with a one-sentence summary. Your partner is timing you.
Listener’s job — you are not a passive audience. While your partner speaks, keep three tallies on a page:
1. Every different modal you hear. Write the word, not a tick.
2. Every article that sounded wrong — extra, missing, or the wrong one.
3. One question you genuinely want answered. Ask it when the two minutes end.
Hand the page over afterwards. It is worth more than "that was good".
Between the rounds — two minutes, silent. Read your partner’s tally. Which modals are missing from the list? Which ones did you use four times?
Write down the two you will add. Nothing else changes.
Task card · Speaking · Round two · New partner · 90 seconds
Same content, new listener, less time. The second telling of anything is always better than the first — the point of this round is to find out how much better.
The same answer in ninety seconds instead of a hundred and twenty, with the two modals you were missing.
- Do not re-plan. The content is already yours; only the delivery changes.
- Cut the written rules to ten seconds. You know them now.
- Your new listener keeps the same three tallies.
- Compare the two pages at the end. That comparison is the lesson.
From the tallies
Five sentences of the kind these two rounds produce. Fix each one, and name what kind of error it was — modal or article.
1. In the my last job we must wear a uniform.
2. My colleague is very experienced engineer.
3. You don’t have to shout at the customers.
4. We go to the work by the bus.
5. On the Fridays we can to leave early.
What changed in ninety seconds
Three questions about your own two rounds.
1. Look at both tally pages. What usually grows between round one and round two?
2. Which of these is safe to say to a new colleague about a dangerous machine?
3. She is nurse — what is missing?
Before next lesson. Keep your partner’s two tally pages. Circle every modal that appears on neither of them.
Those are the ones you own but do not reach for. Next lesson is built out of exactly that gap, and out of the article circles.