What Makes a Speaker Competent?

Contributed by Susan M. Ward, Delaware County Community College

 

Title: What Makes a Speaker Competent?  Applying the Assessment Rubric

 

Course: An introductory course in public/presentational speaking

 

Goals and Objectives

The primary goal is for students to understand what makes a speaker competent.  The objective is for students to identify the technical and stylistic elements of a competent public speaker that will be used to assess their own classroom presentations.  Also, students are provided with an opportunity to indicate which stylistic and technical elements they feel they need assistance with as a public speaker.

 

Rationale

Overall, students understand what makes a presentation good.  However, they struggle with applying that understanding to their own presentations including differentiating the technical elements (preparation and content) from the stylistics elements (presentation and delivery).  Additionally, they often overlook exploring the rubric that will be used to assess their presentations as both a reference for what a competent speaker should do but also as a guide for how to prepare for their own performance.

 

Directions: This activity takes approximately 50 minutes to complete and works best when presented toward the beginning of the term.

 

Materials

1. Easel paper
2. Four dot stickers per each student
3. Rubric for a speech assignment that indicates technical and stylistic elements

 

Preliminary Steps

The instructor writes the heading “technical” at the top of one piece of butcher paper and the heading “stylistic” at the top of the other piece.

 

Class Session

1. Students are divided into groups of four to five students. Groups are asked to designate a note taker who will write down their responses to the question:  What makes a speech good?
2. Groups are given about three minutes to answer the question as the goal is to capture what quickly comes to mind when asked the question.
3. Groups report their list to the instructor who writes the list on the board.
4. The instructor hangs up the easel paper with the headings “technical” and “stylistic” written at the top of the paper. It’s best to hang the paper to the side of the master list from step 4 on the board.
5. In a large group discussion, students are asked to categorize each item from the master list as being technical or stylistic (with the option of selecting neither). Either the instructor or a student can assist with writing the item from the master list on the respective paper (e.g., students decide that eye contact is a stylistic element and the scribe would write eye contact on that sheet of paper).  It’s best to write the items in a single column leaving ample white space next to them for the part of the activity involving the dot stickers.
6. Once all of the items are categorized, the instructor projects the rubric on the screen and asks students to refer to their own personal copy during the next phase of the discussion.
7. The instructor walks the students through each element on the rubric and checks to see if A) the students included it on their list and B) if they categorized it correctly. This process may require crossing some items off of the categorized lists if they do not apply and writing some on them that the students missed.
8. Next, distribute four dot stickers to each student with the direction that they are to place stickers next to any of the items that they feel they need help with as a speaker. They can place all four stickers on one item or distribute them across multiple items (e.g., one sticker for each of four different items).

 

Connection to Concepts

The Competent Speaker Holistic Speech Evaluation Form created by the National Communication Association designates two main categories for assessing a speaker’s competence:  technical and stylistic.  The technical elements are classified as those tasks a speaker accomplishes as she prepares for the speech including items related to the content of the speech.  The stylistic elements refer to those behaviors a speaker exhibits during the presentation and delivery of her speech.  The activity assists students with understanding what it means to be a competent speaker by considering the speaking experience as more than just stylistic elements which is typically what students are more worried about when it comes to speaking in public.  Additionally, a holistic approach affords the instructor the opportunity to walk students through the speechmaking process while maintaining focus on adapting a speech to the audience and occasion as the elements on the evaluation form encourage recognition of these important factors.

 

Typical Results

After completing the activity, students demonstrate a deeper understanding of what constitutes a technical element of public speaking and what constitutes a stylistic element of public speaking.  They are able to speak about both categories in a way that informs their speechmaking process as more than just focusing on their behavior during the presentation.  For example, they are able to discuss the importance of the speech structure in helping the audience to understand their point.

 

Debrief

The debriefing of this activity includes two parts:  at the conclusion of the activity and through subsequent class sessions.  First, at the conclusion of the activity, the instructor leads a group discussion about what elements the students correctly named from the rubric as a characteristic of a competent speaker.  Those elements that were not mentioned are discussed as well including reasons why students may not have thought about them.  Also, the instructor can discuss which elements the class feels they need to concentrate on given the distribution of the dot stickers.  This information can assist with debriefing in subsequent class sessions which call upon students to remember what falls into the technical category and what falls into the stylistic category as well as helping the instructor to spend more time on the elements the students identified as problematic for them.

 

Reference

Morreale, Sherwyn, Michael Moore, Donna Surges-Tatum, and Linda Webster, eds. The Competent Speaker Speech Evaluation Form. Publication. Washington, DC: National Communication Association, 2007. Web. 14 Oct. 2016. <https://www.natcom.org/uploadedFiles/Teaching_and_Learning/ Assessment_Resources/PDF-Competent_Speaker_Speech_Evaluation_Form_2ndEd.pdf>.