I really enjoyed our Evaluation Workshop meeting on May 27, 2015. We had two guest speakers. The first, Mel Bayo, spoke about techniques that can help you win the evaluation contest. Did you ever think that you can rehearse giving evaluations? He suggested doing just that to get lots of extra practice compared to evaluating only at Toastmaster meetings. The second speaker, Jill Lambe, described how contest judging is different from evaluations, and what contestants should do to get the most points from the judges. Knowing the criteria on the judging form will help you remember to have recommendations and a summary in the evaluation contest to score more points. Then we had a mock evaluation contest. The test speaker pointed out that the Toastmasters' definition of a good evaluation will help you avoid giving bad evaluations. Our Table Topics questions were phrased as letters to Dear Abby and the respondents had to provide feedback to the letter writers.
By the way, our workshop participants are doing a terrific job. They are trying the different evaluation formats we are sharing with them. They are giving recommendations for improvement to the people they are evaluating. And I think they are having fun. I certainly like that they are asking questions and participating fully in the meetings. This has been a win-win for all of us.
One of the things that Mel talked about was creating a structure for the evaluation that would tie the whole mini-speech together. I like that idea, but sometimes I've seen evaluations that go too far afield with their structure. In those cases, it's as if the evaluator had come equipped that day with a particular quote or political agenda that he or she intended to squeeze into the evaluation - no matter if it was unrelated to the topic of the evaluated speech. I think it's important to focus on the speech being evaluated. Then, if the evaluation structure can somehow elevate the speech and make the evaluation points more memorable, that is icing on the cake!
ReplyDeleteI had fun with the dear abby TTs. Can I get a copy of that?
ReplyDeleteAnd the one about movies.
thanks, Liz S.
Sure! I'll email this year's, as well as any of the past one to you for kicks.
DeleteSure! I'll email this year's, as well as any of the past one to you for kicks.
DeleteI found this session really informative and applied some of the suggestions in an evaluation at my club the following week. I used the HSF format and focused on giving two specific suggestions to the experienced speaker. Several people mentioned the improvement in my evaluation style and the speaker appreciated the specific feedback and suggestions for improvement.
ReplyDelete