What is An Evaluation?

Each main speaker has an evaluator assigned to evaluate their speech. Overall, the main goal of the evaluation is to leave the speaker with useful information on what they did right and what they can improve. Unlike the speakers who get to plan their speeches, the evaluator has to create their evaluation during the meeting. You basically watch the speech, design your evaluation, and give it later in the meeting.

‘Are evaluators allowed to use notes?’

Yes, you are allowed to bring your official evaluation sheet or notes to the stage / lecturn, but if you feel confident, you can give it without notes.

how to do an Evaluation

Make sure you talk to the speaker before they speak so you know the title of their speech, the purpose of their speech and if there is anything they would like you to look out for (you do not do this if competing in an evaluation contest).

Evaluations should not be made directly to the speaker, instead address your evaluation to the room as a whole.

EXAMPLE:

The wrong way - Julie, you did a very great gesture when you did the splits in the middle of your speech.

The correct way - Julie did a great gesture when she did the splits in the middle of her speech.

A great way structure an evaluation is to split it into three parts using the The Burger (or Sandwich) Method:

BREAD - Talk about positive aspects of the speech

Open on a positive note, talk about everything you enjoyed about the speech. If you open with criticism, then the speaker may stop listening and your words will fall on deaf ears.

What if there wasn’t anything good about the speech?’

If you didn’t notice anything good, then commend them for getting on stage. Public speaking is a huge fear for many, so just getting up in front of the audience is a huge deal, and give the speaker praise for showing courage and tackling a fear.

FILLING - Talk about any recommendations for improvement.

You want to be honest and talk about what you, personally, think the speaker could improve. For example, you may think their opening needs work, but instead of just saying, “You need a better opening.”, say “You opened your speech by saying ‘abc’, but what if you had said ‘xyz’?”, and then explain why you think it would work better.

Remember, the purpose of the evaluation is to give the speaker information on how to do better, so ‘how’ you put your recommendations across matters (see Evaluation Mistakes below)

NOTE: If it’s someone’s first speech, then it may be preferable to give more positive points than points for improvement.

BREAD - A conclusion including the important points and positivity

This is a short summary of the key points which you really want the speaker to take away with them, whilst also reinforcing the positives with final words of encouragement. Always try to finish the evaluation on a positive note.

NOTE: when entering Toastmaster competitions, and for good practice, you should highlight that you are entering this final section of your speech by saying “in conclusion” or “in summary”).

Evaluation Mistakes

Being Too Nice

I’ve seen evaluators who just give the speaker a big pat on the back. It's not an issue if you truly can't spot any faults in the speech, but it is a HUGE issue if you did spot faults but don’t want to hurt the speaker's feelings. It is doing a disservice to the speaker, and their chances to improve as they may just continue on with the same mistakes. You should be aiming for constructive criticism, given in an encouraging manner.

Being Too Mean

No one enjoys being on the receiving end of a person who revels in ‘telling it like it is.’, in which their version of an evaluation is to only point out faults. Some people can push through a mean evaluation, but don’t assume everyone will be able to recover from harsh comments. It could be enough to make some quit public speaking altogether.

These example evaluation notes show a good way to take notes in a structure you can use for your speech. This example shows notes in full, however you will probably want to write using brief notes or bullet points, rather than full sentences, as you do not have a lot of time to write whilst listening.

Remember you only have 2-3 minutes to give your report, so you may feel you can only fit in the key points, but don’t be tempted to only give positive points - without improvement points the speaker doesn’t know what to focus on changing.

More information available here - www.toastmasters.org/membership/club-meeting-roles/evaluator