20 Feb

Speakeasy Toastmasters Club.

Toastmasters meetings can also cover issues such as learning how to present an educational seminar. At our last meeting on 6th February, Effective Evaluation”. This presentation of this Seminar is one of a Elizabeth O’Brien presented an educational seminar on “The Art of number of requirements necessary to achieve specific Toastmaster Educational Awards – in Elizabeth’s case; it was her final requirement to achieve ATM–Gold award.

Elizabeth was our Seminar co-ordinator for the night– and the Seminar began with Elizabeth giving an Educational talk on Evaluations. What makes Toastmasters a unique learning activity is the system of evaluation. There is no instructor in a Toastmasters club – we all take turns to evaluate or assess each other’s speeches.

During the Educational talk, Elizabeth was required to use an overhead projector to show slides with key comments relevant to effective evaluation – such as the correct language usage for evaluations, to personalize evaluations by saying “my reaction was…”. The difference between “evaluation” (i.e. focus on what should be done and tactfully give specific methods for improvement); and “criticism” (i.e. focus on what should not be done by simply pointing out strengths and weaknesses – saying things like “good speakers do it by”) was highlighted as criticism should not part of effective evaluation. Other key issues were addressed such as evaluate the speech, and not the speaker.

Audience interaction was required during the presentation – workbooks were distributed to audience members to answer key questions such as “why do we want to become better speakers” and “how do you build self-esteem when you evaluate”. Elizabeth then summarized audience responses on a flip chart and reviewed the answers in light of data provided by Toastmasters International on these important issues.

An evaluation workshop was then conducted with 3 stage speeches and 3 evaluations. Instead of a General Evaluator, Elizabeth asked for audience participation, again emphasizing the key issue that in Toastmasters learning is by doing amongst your peers. At the conclusion of the meeting, the participants in the Seminar - the co-ordinator, the three speakers and the three evaluators - were all awarded Participation Certificates from Toastmasters International.

The Evaluation Seminar was a timely exercise given that our Club Evaluation Competition takes place at our next meeting, tonight, 20th February.
Change of Room
Members and Guests, please note that there is a change of room again this week. Please enquire at reception for directions.

For further information on the Club contact Sean on 086 6054784 or Pat 087 2364240 or visit the Club’s Website at www.clix.to/speakeasy. Email, speakeasymallow@eircom.net