graded assignment evaluate a speaker

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Peer Evaluations

Learning to evaluate a speaker is a valuable skill to have and should be practiced even beyond a public speaking class. Evaluation employs the skills involved with critical thinking to listen to, dissect, analyze, and critique a message. This provides an opportunity to commend what worked well in the speech, as well as list areas of improvement for future speeches.

Essentially, a peer evaluation serves as a formal critique based on a set of pre-established criteria used to evaluate the speaker. To complete this task requires practice of all that has been laid out within this chapter, including setting aside all distractions, focusing on individual portions of the speech objectively, and maintaining a laser-sharp focus.

Good evaluators act like good coaches, and a good coach encourages good behaviors. In a quest for excellence, good coaches also point out areas that need improvement. When good coaches can express their opinions accurately with good interpersonal skills, the participants can excel and feel good about that important teaching moment. Encourage good behaviors, and help the speaker become even better in the future.

Note to Self

Here are some points to keep in mind:

• Be prepared to evaluate . Bring peer evaluation forms (if required) to class on speech days. These forms offer invaluable guidance to help evaluate the various components of the basic speech organizational pattern.
• Learn how to evaluate correctly early on in the semester . During speeches, your evaluations will count toward your grade. Bottom line: learning how to do a proper peer evaluation will not only help your grade, but will also help you become a better speaker!
• Know the “criteria” for evaluating speeches . The criteria are the standards by which you will judge the speech. Look over the assignment objectives and the appropriate evaluation forms for criteria.
• Write while the speaker presents the material. This may seem rude at first, especially if you are not accustomed to note taking. It may seem difficult initially, but you will soon feel that it comes naturally as you learn to listen for and provide constructive feedback. Most students don’t take long to become efficient and effective at completing evaluations.
• Read over and study the samples at the end of this chapter . These were taken from actual student evaluations. Use them as a model for your own evaluations.
• Begin by listing three positive aspects of the speech, or three things you think the speaker did very well. Be sure to support these with specific examples. Do not just say, “Good speech,” or “I really liked it.” Take it further and articulate not only which details you found effective, but why.
• Follow this up by discussing two areas that need improvement . What could the speaker have done better? List and then support your assertions with clear and specific details. How might the speaker improve upon these areas or learn from them for the next speech? For example, if you found the speaker’s opening statement rather lackluster, provide a suggestion or strategy for how to improve it, such as, “In future speeches consider opening with something such as a quote or staggering statistic for improved impact.” This last component is essential to growth; the speaker must not only know what needs improvement but also how to improve it.
• Lastly, include your overall impression . If this was an informative speech, how well informed did you feel afterward? How unique and innovative was the speaker’s treatment of the topic? How well did the speaker relate the topic to you as an audience member? Again, support this impression with details from the speech itself.

Above all, remember that the peer evaluation process helps others learn from their experiences to become better communicators, so all feedback provided during this process should pursue that purpose. Positive feedback should encourage speakers to capitalize on those strengths. Constructive criticism should not break a speaker down, but instead, point to areas where further development and refinement are required to communicate more effectively.

Messages that Matter: Public Speaking in the Information Age - Third Edition Copyright © 2023 by North Idaho College is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Writing Center Evaluating Speakers for Performance

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This guide was created by  Susan Daniels  and uploaded on March 23, 2020.

Below are some ways to evaluate student presentations, focusing on the performance of the presentation.  Sharing these questions with your students not only communicates what you will be "looking for, listening for and feeling for" in their presentations, but it also offers students a way to evaluate each other that isn't solely based on a presentation's content.  

Try grouping your thoughts into three categories: What did I see, hear and feel? Then, evaluate by giving specific observations and actionable recommendations.

1. What did I see?

• Notice the speaker's stage presence. Did they breathe from the belly? What was their comfort level? Did they smile and make eye contact?
• Did the speaker overly rely on their notes or did they use them as helpful guides?
• Did they memorize the introduction and conclusion?
• Did their gestures/body language enhance the presentation? How?

2. What did I hear?

Introduction/ organization/conclusion.

• Did the introduction get your attention? Was it creative? Interesting? Shocking?
• Did the speaker preview the thesis of the speech?
• Was the body of the speech clearly organized; did it build up to a point?
• Did the conclusion signal that the end of the speech was coming?
• Clarity: Did the speaker enunciate so that you could understand what they were saying?
• Volume: Was the volume appropriate to the speaking conditions (size of space, size of audience, microphone or not)?
• Pitch: Did the speaker speak from the "powerhouse" (diaphragmatic belly breathing) vs. from the chest/throat?
• Vocal variety: Did the speaker vary their rate and pitch in order to avoid a monotone presentation?
• Rate: Was the speech appropriately paced and use pauses effectively?
• Fillers: Did the speaker "fill" in pauses with filler sounds like "um" "so" "uhhhh."

3. What did I feel?

• Did the speaker connect with the audience? Did you feel as if you mattered, as if the speaker needed you to witness that speech?
• Did the speech accomplish its purpose, given the assignment?
• For a speech of introduction: do I know the speaker better now?
• For an informative speech, did I learn new information?
• For a persuasive speech, will I think about the speech topic differently now, as a result of the speech?

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How to Evaluate Speaking Skills

Last Updated: February 14, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by Patrick Muñoz . Patrick is an internationally recognized Voice & Speech Coach, focusing on public speaking, vocal power, accent and dialects, accent reduction, voiceover, acting and speech therapy. He has worked with clients such as Penelope Cruz, Eva Longoria, and Roselyn Sanchez. He was voted LA's Favorite Voice and Dialect Coach by BACKSTAGE, is the voice and speech coach for Disney and Turner Classic Movies, and is a member of Voice and Speech Trainers Association. There are 11 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 32,022 times.

Evaluating your students' speaking skills can be a bit daunting. After all, how do you stay objective on such a subjective topic? Never fear, you can be mostly objective as long as you create a standard rubric, including a clear set of criteria to assess your learners. Once that's done, you can decide on which types of assessments you'd like to use for evaluation. Then, you can have the students perform the assessment while you use the rubric.

Creating a Rubric

• For instance, your goal might be to have students learn how to organize and present information, which would be a good goal for a presentation.
• Alternatively, maybe your goal is to have students demonstrate knowledge of vocabulary and syntax, in which case a variety of assessments would be appropriate.
• Other goals might be to establish that students can respond to questions in their second language or to evaluate how well students can think on their feet.

• The detail in your scale depends on what you're using the evaluation for. If you're trying to determine a letter grade, you'll likely need a more detailed scale. If you're just trying to figure out where someone needs improvement, a less detailed scale should be fine. [2] X Research source
• The scale should run from failing on the low end to doing very well on the high end.

• Have a second page on hand where you list the description for each criteria and each number along the top.

Establishing the Criteria You're Assessing

• Denotation is the strict dictionary definition of the word. Connotation is the social and emotional context behind the word.
• For instance, "avoid" and "escape" are considered synonyms, and therefore, have similar denotations. However, they have different connotations, as "escape" tends to mean getting out of a bad situation while "avoid" can mean not being in the situation in the first place.
• When establishing your scale for this criteria, you could have things like "Uses syntax and vocabulary fluently" on the high end and "Has trouble forming sentences and choosing words" on the low end.

• Listen to see how easy you can understand the person. Pay particular attention to words that have difficult spellings, as that makes pronunciation harder.
• For your scale, you could use "Pronounces words clearly, uses contractions appropriately" on the high end and "Is very difficult to understand, doesn't use contractions" on the low end. An average student might be "Pronounces more than half of the words well, uses contractions occasionally."

• Essentially, this criteria is checking to see if the student knows more than just vocabulary. Can they put words together into sentences and sentences together into paragraphs?
• For this scale, you might use "Speech flowed together and was easy to understand as a whole" for the high end, and "Speech was disconnected, student had trouble piecing thoughts together." An average student might be "Has good grasp of vocabulary; can put sentences together with a little difficulty."

• For this scale, you might have "Able to respond to questions with accuracy" for the top of the scale and "Had trouble understanding and replying to questions" for the bottom. For the middle, you might have "Could understand what was being asked but could only give rote answers."

Choosing Assessment Tasks

• The questions can be simple, such as: How are you doing today? What's the weather like outside? or What are your plans for the weekend?
• The questions could also be themed, such as a weather theme: Is it sunny out? When did it rain last? What was the weather like yesterday? and What's your favorite kind of weather?
• Try giving your students a selection of topics to prepare for ahead of time, and then choosing 1 or 2 for the exam.

• You can let students choose their topic or assign one to them. The topics can be simple, such as describing how to do something or telling a personal story.

• Let the student select a topic or assign one. Have a set time limit for the video. Establish the basic points you'd like to see in the video, such as introduction to the topic, a discussion of its relevance, and a conclusion.
• Be as specific as you can to put students at ease.

• For instance, you can ask the student to put the images in an order and then explain why they chose that order.
• You could also ask the student to compare and contrast the pictures.

• For instance, give them a story to read before class. Ask them to retell it to you for the evaluation.
• Alternatively, give students a text to read for a set period of time in class, then ask each student to come retell it to you privately.

Doing the Assessment

• For instance, you may want to set a goal of a 5 minute presentation or a 3-4 minute discussion.

• This shows students exactly what you want and helps put them at ease when it comes time for them to do it. You want students to be as relaxed as possible for the evaluation, so they can do their best.

• This activity allow students to see exactly what you want, and it can help them improve their own presentation or speaking skills when it comes time to do it themselves.

• Once you have a number for each criteria, you can take an average of the numbers to assign a grade to the student, if you need to assign a grade.
• For instance, if you have the numbers 8, 7, 5, 8, and 6 for scores, add them together (34) and divide by how many criteria you have (5) to get 6.8. Use that number to assign a grade.

• For instance, at the end of a presentation, ask the student to take a few minutes to discuss how they did.

Expert Q&A

• If you're trying to assess yourself, take a video of yourself speaking. Use a rubric like the one above to decide how you did. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/professional-development/teachers/assessing-learning/articles/evaluating-speaking-ielts-speaking
• ↑ https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/answer_key_assessing_speaking_vb.pdf
• ↑ https://busyteacher.org/4836-how-to-evaluate-speaking.html
• ↑ https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/professional-development/teachers/knowing-subject/articles/evaluating-speaking
• ↑ Patrick Muñoz. Voice & Speech Coach. Expert Interview. 12 November 2019.
• ↑ https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/professional-development/teachers/assessing-learning/articles/evaluating-speaking-part-2
• ↑ https://grad.arizona.edu/funding/ga/english-speaking-proficiency-evaluation

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