It is our experience that Japanese students enjoy public speaking classes. Once the initial hurdles of course planning and the students' first presentations are over, the classes can be engaging and entertaining. Students appreciate speech communication for its practical real-world application and the opportunities it provides for expressing personal ideas. Furthermore, because public speaking is a performance, it consolidates the information and skills learned and practiced during the term. Often students complain that conversation classes are boring because the topics covered seem trivial. Through public speaking, students can begin to articulate relevant issues of personal importance, and learn to use formal registers of speech. Pragmatics can be contextualized and discussed with respect to purpose and audience. We will introduce a public speaking course which has been developed and used at both the secondary and post-secondary levels. We will discuss the objectives of the course, including the rationale for having students do peer and self-evaluations, and present course activities.