abstract
| - Public speaking and leadership are skills, and like any skill they can be developed and improved, through practice and feedback. In Toastmasters, feedback is called evaluation, and it is an essential part of the Toastmasters educational program. If you truly want to improve your speaking and leadership skills, you must learn how to give and receive beneficial evaluations. People join Toastmasters clubs to improve their speaking and leadership skills; they accomplish their goals through a program of self-guided and initiated study and practice. They are aided in this effort by their Toastmasters peers, who serve as Evaluators. Members prepare and present speeches based on projects in the Competent Communication Manual, or they serve in leadership roles while completing projects in the Competent Leadership Manual. Their fellow club members evaluate the speeches or leadership efforts, assisting the members to further develop their speaking or leadership skills. How you go about evaluating your speaker has a great impact, on the speaker as well as on the club. A harsh evaluation may even cause a member to leave the club. An unperceptive, uncritical evaluation may not help the member to improve, making the member dissatisfied. Good evaluators strive instead to provide effective evaluations, giving evaluations that are helpful and encouraging. Although this guide is oriented to evaluating others in the club, the skills you learn can be applied in all aspects of your life. You will become a more attentive and receptive listener, a more creative and critical thinker, and a more effective and beneficial ally. By studying this article carefully and applying its concepts and techniques to your evaluations, you will quickly be able to give helpful, positive, constructive evaluations that will motivate the receiver, facilitate the speaker's learning, and aid the speaker in addressing their challenges. You will also learn about different evaluation methods and about resources available to help you and your fellow club members. And you will find out how your club can evaluate itself to ensure the club is meeting member needs.
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