Meeting Role Guide
Watchman
Toastmasters role: Speech Evaluator
Provide constructive and encouraging feedback that helps a speaker improve their skills and confidence.
The Role
The Speech Evaluator’s role in the meeting is to provide constructive and encouraging feedback that supports the speaker to improve their public speaking skills and confidence. The Evaluator focuses on the speaker during the speech, making only a few notes. Seek to understand the speaker’s viewpoint. Feedback is often given with statements such as “I heard,” “I saw,” “I felt,” and avoiding “you” statements, which can be discouraging.
Consider the speaker’s experience level when giving feedback. The goal of feedback is to motivate, help, and build confidence. An inexperienced speaker can be overwhelmed with too much feedback. Pick only one or two items as the focus of your evaluation. Repeating a couple elements of the speech shows you were listening. Do not recount the whole speech.
Be sure you have the evaluation form for the speech. The speaker should provide it, but you can download the form from the full agenda for the meeting, or from Basecamp at the Toastmasters.org site.
Before the Meeting
- Sign up for the role ahead of the meeting, so you have time to interact with the speaker.
- Ask for the evaluation form, or find it yourself on the agenda page.
- Ask the speaker if there are any special concerns they want you to cover.
During the Meeting
- Give your full attention to the speaker while they are speaking; limit yourself to a few notes.
- Flesh out your feedback after the speech. If the speaker is new, limit your improvements to one or two items.
- Use “I” statements instead of “you” statements. (See resources.)
- Give your feedback, focusing as much as possible on the positives in the 2-3 minutes allotted.
After the Meeting
Complete the evaluation form, and give or email to the speaker as soon as reasonably possible.
When You’re Called On
Not applicable
Skills You’ll Practice
- Listening: focus on the speaker.
- Critical thinking: use to understand the speaker’s ideas. Whether you agree with them or not is irrelevant.
- Give feedback in a non-critical way that offers just the right amount of information for the speaker’s skill level.
- Motivation: encourage the speaker to learn and improve.
Why Take This Role?
Listening and critical thinking bring heightened awareness in business and life situations. Learning to give feedback rather than criticism enables us to better regard the feedback (or criticism) we might be given.