Speech Timer

Speech Timer is an application helping people to practice speech such as for Toastmasters. Of course it is not as complete as the whole course. But it helps people when they prepare their speech their home.

The Timer tab shows the timer display along with the green, yellow, and red time markers. Above the numeric time display shows at what times the green, yellow, and red lights will turn on. Just below that display shows a progress bar which ranges from time zero up to after the time in which the red light turns on – at this time the lights will blink indicating that the speech have overtimed beyond the hard maximum speech time limit.

Pressing the grey button displays speech setup screen. The speech type is used to determine at what times the appropriate colored lights will turn on. You can also enter the person who is making the speech (orator name). While you type, Speech Timer will provide suggestions based on the names available in your address book – just tap on the suggested name to choose it. When you have entered the orator name and choose a speech type, tap on Done.

Speech Timer comes with an initial set of speech types that may be modified and re-arranged, or even deleted.

While the timer is running, the phone will sound a short beep when the timing lights change. This is to alert you as time progresses. The Green button will also changes from Start to Pause which allows you to suspend timekeeping temporarily.

If you hold your phone straight up while the timer is running, the entire screen will turn to green/yellow/red as according to the timer lights. But when the time haven’t reached green, the screen will turn white instead. This is so that the phone may be used as both timer and color flag. The speech light changes and the corresponding flag modes are shown in the screenshots below.

The Speech Types tab displays the various speech types available for selection. Each speech type determines at what times does the various lights turn on. Tapping on the Edit button in the upper-right allows adding, removing or editing entries in this list as well as re-arranging it.

There are five time marks that may be configured for each speech type. Each time mark represents increasing points in time in which a speech progresses.

Green – This indicates that the speech has passed the minimum time required. Yellow – Indicates that the speaker should be completing his or her speech shortly. Red – Indicates that the speaker should stop immediately. Blink – Indicates that the speaker has seriously overtimed and should be pulled off the stage. Stop – The timer will automatically stop when time reaches this point.

The History tab shows all speech timings grouped by day. The most recent day will be shown on top and within each group the speeches are ordered by starting time. Each history entry contains.

Starting time Speech type name Time elapsed Green/Yellow/Red timing that was effective when that speech type was used. This History tab is most useful for the Timer’s report in a Toastmasters chapter meeting session. You can simply read off the speech history and say “The first speech took xx minutes and xx seconds, the second speech took xx minutes and xx seconds, etc.”

Furthermore you can send the speech history via e-mail as a human-readable HTML table or a computer-readable CSV text for further processing/editing by spreadsheet applications.

The Clear button at the upper-right corner is used to remove all history entries.