This paper is a classroom practice report featuring HIT＇s required sophomore English course. “Special English A” is intended to prepare students for the TOEIC test. Unlike the classes taught by professors who use TOEIC-oriented materials, I decided to take a “presentation-oriented” approach: that is, recitation. Recitation is a performing art where the speaker normally recites a poem or some other kind of rhetorical work from memory. Believed to be effective in improving the learner’s oralaural abilities, it has long been used as a gateway to learning a foreign language. For this particular course, I picked as material a speech from the inventory of TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), which is a series of academic conferences that have gained huge popularity over the last decade or so. After a series of collaborative or cooperative preparation sessions, all the students were required to give their recitations on the penultimate week for a preliminary competition, with the 8 qualifiers proceeding to the final on the 15th week. Feedback showed that at least 65% of the students explicitly voiced approval for a recitation-based approach to learning.