Quick Structures

Year 9 Power of Speech • Impromptu • Structure

A structure buys you time. It tells you what to say next when your mind is still catching up. This page sets out five reliable structures for impromptu speaking and shows how to choose between them in the first ten seconds.

PREP

Point, Reason, Example, Point. The simplest and most flexible structure. It works for opinions, questions and quotations.

Step	What to say	Example
Point	State your position.	“School should start later for Year 9.”
Reason	Give the main reason.	“Teenage sleep cycles shift later, so early starts cut sleep.”
Example	Give a specific case.	“In my house, the 7am bus means leaving before I have properly woken up.”
Point	Return to the position.	“A later start would not fix everything, but it would give us a fair chance.”

PREP can be delivered in sixty seconds. It is the default structure when you have no better idea.

Past–present–future

Move through time to show change, continuity or consequence. It works well for objects, places, words and broad themes.

Step	What to say	Example: “Home”
Past	What it used to be.	“When I was younger, home was the sound of the front gate.”
Present	What it is now.	“Now home is a phone call and a key I carry but rarely use.”
Future	What it might become.	“One day it will be a place I describe to someone who has never seen it.”

This structure can become nostalgic or vague. Keep it anchored in specific details.

Problem–solution

Name a problem, explain why it matters, propose a solution and say what it would take. It works for question and scenario prompts.

Step	What to say
Problem	“The canteen throws away a bin of food every day.”
Why it matters	“That is waste, cost and a missed chance to help.”
Solution	“A simple end-of-day shelf for leftover packaged food.”
Cost or condition	“It would need a fridge and a clear policy.”
Close	“The hard part is not the idea; it is the first week of saying yes.”

Cause–effect

Explain why something happened or what followed. It works for historical, social and personal prompts.

Step	What to say
Cause	“When the library extended its hours ...”
Mechanism	“... students who could not study at home had somewhere to go ...”
Effect	“... and after-school borrowing rose.”
Qualification	“It was not the only factor, but it was a visible one.”

Story spine

A simple narrative structure: situation, complication, turning point, resolution, reflection. It works for object, image and scenario prompts.

Step	What to say
Situation	“Every morning, the same man sat on the bench outside the library.”
Complication	“One morning, he was not there.”
Turning point	“A student asked the librarian if anyone knew his name.”
Resolution	“Nobody did. So they started writing it down.”
Reflection	“A bench is not a community. Knowing someone's name is a start.”

Compare–contrast

Set two things side by side and draw a conclusion. It works for quotation and question prompts.

Step	What to say
Set up	“There are two ways to think about failure.”
Side A	“One treats it as proof that you cannot do something.”
Side B	“The other treats it as information about what to try next.”
Conclusion	“The second is harder, but it is the only one that leads anywhere.”

Choosing a structure

Prompt	Best structure	Why
“Should ...?”	PREP or problem–solution	Needs a position and reasons.
Object or image	Story spine or past–present–future	Needs a concrete narrative.
Quotation	PREP or compare–contrast	Needs a response to an idea.
Scenario	Problem–solution or story spine	Needs a decision and consequence.
Broad theme	Cause–effect or past–present–future	Needs a through-line.

Activity: same prompt, three structures

Choose one prompt.
Respond for sixty seconds using PREP.
Respond again using past–present–future.
Respond again using problem–solution.
Ask a listener which structure was clearest and why.
Keep the structure that felt most natural for that prompt type.

A structure is a promise to the audience. Once you start with “There are two reasons”, the audience expects two. Keep the promise, even if you have to simplify.

Common errors

Choosing a structure you cannot remember. Use one of the five.
Starting before you choose. Ten seconds of planning saves a minute of rambling.
Changing structure mid-speech. It disorients the audience.
Forgetting the close. Return to the point.
Overloading the structure. Two or three steps are enough.
Using a structure as a formula. The content still has to be interesting.

Next, study openings and endings to make the structure land. The evidence under pressure page gives you something to put inside it.