EVALUATIONS

An evaluation is a mini speech – it contains an introduction, body and conclusion (summary). The summary at the end is very important. NB: Remember you are evaluating the speech not the person.

An evaluation should be positive and upbeat. When you give suggestions for improvements, always demonstrate or give an example and make sure to evaluate only areas that the speaker has the power to change.

You won’t have time to cover everything. Instead, simply select two or three points which you feel are most important and elaborate on them. Be honest. If you did not like some aspect of the person’s performance, do not say that you did.

Remember to be specific with each point of feedback. If the speech organisation was confusing at one point, say so, but clearly address what confused you and offer a suggestion for improvement. E.g. “I found it a bit confusing when you were talking about the trucks – I wasn’t always quite sure if you were referring to the new one or the old one. Giving each truck a nickname and using it throughout the speech may have worked better. That would have helped to make the references clearer to your audience and maybe even added more humour.” If you were impressed, for example, with the speaker’s description of an object, say so. “I loved your descriptive language. My mouth watered when you described that fudge cake.”

Avoid starting a sentence with YOU (this makes it feel like you are evaluating the person rather than the speech). Other ways to start the sentence:

• I felt / I saw / I heard / I thought …
• In my opinion …
• I would like to suggest …
• Perhaps consider …

Two effective methods to follow for evaluations are the 3-2-1 feedback method and the “sandwich” method.

3-2-1 method:

• 3 things I liked
• 2 areas I feel could be improved
• 1 thing I liked the most
• Summary

Sandwich method:

In the “sandwich” approach, a suggestion for improvement is sandwiched between two positive comments (you can still have 2 suggestions for improvement):

• 2 things I liked
• 1 thing for improvement
• 2 things I liked
• Another thing for improvement
• The thing I liked the most
• Summary

Telling the speaker what you liked shows them where their strengths lie and telling the speaker where you feel the speech could be improved gives them something to work on – this is one of the most important aspects of feedback, as we all know we are not perfect and we want to know how to improve ourselves (or we wouldn’t be attending Toastmasters)!