During our recent speech evaluation workshop, our Trainer Linda White shared a number of tips and tricks to improve our speech evaluations. While speech evaluation is more of an art than a science according to her. Some general guidelines should nevertheless be followed for delivering effective evaluations:
Evaluate to encourage and motivate.
Evaluate the speech and how it was delivered. You should not evaluate the content!
Give specific feedback and back it up with examples.
Evaluate the speech. Don’t retell it!
Evaluate the speech. Don’t tell your own story!
Watch how you say it. Use positive and encouraging language.
Use the commend, recommend, commend structure. Aka the “evaluation sandwich”.
Speak for the benefit of the whole audience. Use third person when doing evaluations!
Refer to the speech objectives in the manual. Plus any personal objectives the speaker may have!
Balance the evaluation depending on the level and experience of the speaker.
Prepare your evaluations in advance. Read the speech objectives!
End with a summary.
Writing notes is often a challenge for speech evaluator.
The general advice is to write as much as you can and to select anything relevant later for when you’ll deliver the evaluation. Speech evaluators might find it beneficial to use a “saw, heard, felt” grid or a simpler grid divided into commendations and recommendations.Onwards with your evaluations!
We were thrilled to hold our first ever workshop during our last meeting. Speech evaluations are an essential part of the Toastmasters educational programme. Indeed, it is the feedback from these evaluations that enable speakers to develop an awareness of what they are doing well and what they need to improve.
Our Toastmaster of the meeting was Vice-President Education Fahad and he quickly introduced our trainer this evening, Linda White. We started off with an interactive session on what constitutes the key ingredients of an effective evaluation. In no particular order. An effective evaluation, should be encouraging, complimentary on what the speaker did well, give specific recommendations and not digress. It is also important not to forget that evaluations are for the benefit of the entire audience and not just the speaker!
Our trainer Linda
Contributions from the audience
We only had two speakers this evening, both of which received several evaluations and an interactive evaluation from the audience. Our first speaker, was Stephen ‘The Emergency Plumber’. Stephen shared with us his work as an emergency plumber, including how his very first intervention, tightening a tap pipe, went and the fact that he so far “never flooded the same room twice!” The audience enjoyed the sharp conclusion to the speech, the confidence projected by Stephen and his vocal variety. His three evaluators, Natalie, Eleanor and Edem. Provided further feedback on eye contact and how to introduce the speech’s topic.
Stephen ‘The Emergency Plumber’
Speaking second was Vice-President Mentorshop Edwin ‘An Inspiring Speech’. Edwin began his speech by recounting JFK’s 1963 civil rights address and how this was the perfect speech at the perfect time. This speech also ties in with the three core principles by which Edwin’s wants to live his life, namely treat others as you would want to be treated, be responsible and give equal opportunities to all. A better structured was recommended as feedback by the audience. The three evaluators, Yvonne, Eddie and Ayokunle then suggested more eye contact, a slower pace to let the words sink in and enable more empathy.
Edwin with ‘An Inspiring Speech’
The workshop was then wrapped up was more feedback from the audience on speech evaluations and on the workshop itself. The workshop was thoroughly enjoyed by all including our numerous guests from other Toastmaster clubs!
A crucial part of the Toastmaster educational program are speech evaluations. Every speech and every role is followed with an evaluation of how the speaker or role taker did. This offers them and everyone in the room the ability to know what they are doing well and what they could do even better next time.
Providing a thorough evaluation of each speech helps the speaker develop their skills, the audience to learn communication tips and the evaluator to develop prowess in providing feedback for others.
The technique behind giving a great evaluation isn’t limited to Toastmasters! Indeed, listening carefully to a colleague, customer or friend and offering constructive commendations and feedback is a great skill to have in all areas of life.
London Victorians is pleased to be hosting a workshop for members and guests to specifically learn how to give fantastic evaluations.
The workshop will be led by advanced Toastmaster and professional coach, Linda White.
This is a free workshop for anyone who would like to develop their evaluation skills. It will be on Tuesday August 4th starting at 6:30pm sharp.
All guests are free to come along without prior arrangement. More detail on our venue can be found here.
This evaluation workshop will enable you to develop these key skills:
Listening
Note taking
Effective speech structure
Giving specific praise and commendations
Delivering constructive feedback
Providing advice and offering suggest actions
And much much more
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
Once again the sun enlightened the upstairs room of the Windsor Castle Pub during our last meeting. Toastmaster of the evening Sergey outlined the structure of the meeting, with the customary prepared speeches, followed by evaluations and then table topics. Covering the whole spectrum of a typical Toastmasters meeting.
Toastmaster of the evening Sergey.
Once day an unknown Toastmasters member said “Toastmasters is all about a set idea within a set period of time” and Rosie made sure that we all lived up to the saying. For her first role as a new club member, Abi (congrats Abi) was grammarian with “magnified” as word of the day. To tally up the votes and collect those all-important feedback slips, was Eddie as vote counter.
Vote Counter Eddie
Our first speaker was Alex whose speech ‘A brief history of tattoos’ recounted the history of tattoos. Did you know that caveman Otzi already had tattoos? I did not! Until I learnt it at Toastmasters! Thomas followed on with a project #7 from the Competent Communicator manual. Answering the question of ‘What caused the 2008 Financial Crisis?’ was anything but simple. Nevertheless Thomas tackled the subject with aplomb. It all started with the subprime market in the United States, whose risks where spread out in collateral debt obligations, which were then purchased by international investors. The variety of speeches and speakers is one of the great beauty of Toastmasters, which each speech project tackled in unique ways!
Alex ‘Brief history of tattoos’
Since two speakers dropped out at the last minute, our Toastmaster of the evening asked for two volunteers to do improvised speeches. Club president Florian stepped in first by doing a speech on the ‘British Summer’. Extoling the virtues of Pimms and Lemonade on grass and of a milder weather compared to other countries. VP Mentorship Edwin followed on with ‘Nuclear Power – Yes Please’ although he turned the subject on its head and outlined his opposition for the energy due to its potential dangers. Some true Toastmasters spirit on show here by just doing it! Well done both!
Club president Florian tackling an improv on ‘The British Summer’
Eleanor evaluated the first speech, commending Alex for his effective use of visual aids but recommending that he reviews his speech structure. Fahad evaluated Thomas next, congratulating Thomas for using the full length of the stage, but highlighting that all hand gestures should be open and not closed. Natalie evaluated Florian’s improvised speech, by recommending more profound eye contact but nevertheless commending audience involvement. Finally, Terry evaluated Edwin’s speech and reminded everyone one the rule that only 7% of the meaning of a message is conveyed through the word we use. Thence, vocal variety and body language are key to emphasize a message.
Nat evaluating Florian
The table topics session was chaired by Lindsay and featured questions such as “imagine you are an alien invading earth” or “you are taken back 200 million years ago”.
One of our guests doing a table topic
The session was evaluated by Magda, which congratulated everyone for taking part and for the use of humor in the speeches. Abi followed on with her grammarian report, including a very precise count of ‘hums’ ‘err’ and other verbal crutches.
At Toastmasters we love nice language and our grammarian Abi had plenty of examples to give!
At Toastmasters, everything is evaluated and we were very privileged to have a general evaluation Christian coming all the way from Johannesburg!
General evaluator Christian coming all the way from South Africa!
See you all at our evaluation workshop on August 4th!
It was under a magnificent July sun that our latest meeting was open and that another evening of public speaking began. Leading tonight’s session was very experienced speaker and member, our VPPR Marina Lussich whose theme of the evening was ‘conquering your sumit’. Indeed, learning public speaking is all about conquering one’s fears and learning a new skill just like any other, one step at a time.
Our Toastmaster of the evening, Marina!
In charge of time was Stephen followed by grammarian Rosie putting forward ‘challenge’ as her word of the day and finally Thomas as vote counter.
Grammarian Rosie!
Three different speakers were on the agenda tonight, all in various stages of their Toastmasters journey and speaking on different subjects. To start off was Lindsay ‘In the blink of an eye’ speaking on how we take everything for granted if life and how we don’t take the time to pay attention to the world around us. Giving the example of world renowned violinist Joshua Bell playing in Washington metro only to be listened by seven people. Our second speaker of the evening was Magda with ‘Oxi’ speaking on the economic situation of her native Greece and the present situation unfolded. Speaking next as third speaker was Terry ‘Sales training changes over 50 years’. In his speech, Terry spoke about the development of sales techniques from Zig Ziglar focus on closing the deal to the more consultative and research based approach to selling that pervades nowadays.
‘In the blink of an eye’
The great benefit of the Toastmasters’s approach to learning public speaking, is the focus on peer to peer feedback and evaluations. Opening the evaluations was VP Mentorship Edwin, recommending that Lindsay improves by including the audience more and using more eye contact in his speaking. Club president Florian followed on by advising Magda to finish her speech with a stronger conclusion and to prepare more beforehand. Sergey’s evaluation of Terry focused on including more facts and figures, especially references as the speech objectives of project #7 of the Competent Communicator manual are to research a topic.
Sergey’s evaluation of Terry’s speech
The table topics session was led by Prateek using quotes as the theme, participants had to explain the meaning of quotes such as “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing” or “Where the magic happens” and “if you want to become a lion, train with lions”. Numerous members and guests had a go at improving their improvisation skills. Everyone was provided feedback on their speeches by Yvonne in her first time as table topics evaluator (congratulations Yvonne!).
One of our guests tackling a table topic!
Another great evening of public speaking was closed off by Rosie’s grammarian report commending on the use of phrases such as “delicate details”. Followed by local area 8 director Laurent evaluating the whole evening as general evaluator.
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