Speech Evaluation I: A Simple Structure for a Speech Evaluation

For you, is evaluating speeches more terrifying than delivering the speech or responding to a Table Topics question?  A speech evaluation deals with people's feelings, their self-esteem, their feeling of self-worth.  We want to get it right. We want to make the speaker feel good and feel good about improving.

These principles apply to speech evaluations, to employer/employee relationships, to coaching, or to any situation where we give feedback.

In the Toastmasters meeting, we hear the speech and take notes.  Then we stand to give our best evaluation.  Have you ever felt like you were babbling, trying to squeeze an encyclopedia of public speaking into 3 minutes?  Are you unsure what to say, so you wind up saying, "Your vocal variety was good. Your structure was good. Your eye contact was... good.  The whole speech was, you know... uh good.  I really liked your use of words.  I have a couple of suggestions on how you could improve this speech for next time."

Familiar?

To help ease our challenge with evaluating speeches, we see many suggestions on how to structure an evaluation. The most common is the sandwich method. Here are a few variations:

1. Praise/Strengths
2. Suggest/Criticize/Areas for Improvement
3. Praise/Strengths

or this modified sandwich from Andrew Dlugan at Six Minutes:

1. Praise
2. Areas for Improvement
3. Specific suggestions

Rob Christeson suggests:

1. Open strong
2. Be specific
3. Summarize and be positive

The G.L.O.V.E. method (Gestures, Language, Organization, Voice, Enthusiasm) is a method for providing a generalized evaluation.  You could use it to structure the body of the evaluation, but we are still left without an opening and a conclusion.

The late Graham Wright gave me the following structure as a coach's gift and I honour his wisdom by sharing it with you:

1. Rapport
2. Feedback
3. Inspire

Rapport

When the evaluator is in rapport with the speaker, the speaker will more easily receive and apply the evaluator's feedback.

Here are a few ways to get into rapport:

• be enthusiastic and smile (duh). "Why so serious?" all you evaluators
• describe your general response(s) to the speech. Were you entertained, informed, intrigued, touched?

Feedback

To evaluate is to measure against a set of criteria. In Toastmasters, we do this to a degree when we complete the project-specific evaluation forms in the manuals.

Is the rating system on the evaluation form helpful to the speaker?  What does 2 Could Improve mean when all of us can always improve?  Does the speak know what to continue doing or to change?

"Constructive criticism" contains the word criticism or criticize in it. Most people get emotionally stuck on the criticism and forget about constructive.  Even the word "critique" creates negative feelings for most people, no matter how positive it might be.

Giving feedback is different from evaluating, rating, and criticism.  Feedback is:

• being specific ("I liked your..." and "You had good..." are useless.)
• describing how we responded to the speaker's speech and its delivery
• describing how your response could change with a specified change

Inspire

Inspire the speaker:

• to accept and apply your feedback
• to enter their Discomfort Zone with experimentation and play
• to speak again.

By building rapport, giving specific feedback, and inspiring the speaker to continue growing, we will achieve the spirit of evaluating speeches in Toastmasters.  This structure and underlying methods can be used in any situation: at work, in other organizations, and at home.

Watch for future articles with details on how to build rapport, give specific feedback, and inspire...

Craig Senior

Comments

[Bill Limbacher]

Good beginning to your series of articles. The variety of formats is informative and thought provoking. I can use them to help make my club less moribund. Thank you and I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Bill Limbacher, CC, ALB
Wilmington Expressives
Wilmington, Ohio, USA