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May 4, 2004
Tournament tests tongues of competitors
Lee Kauftheil
Mesa Legend
From three categories and 70 students, 15 students went home with
plaques and 55 students received certificates at the April 16 Big Speak
Out, hosted at MCC by the communication department.
All students received extra credit for participation.
Each semester for the past eight years, the communication department has
held the event to help students practice their public speaking skills
by competing against other students.
When Erin Rawson, director of speech activities and communication instructor,
originally started the tournament, there were only two categories available
for students to compete in – informative and persuasive speech styles.
In an effort to make the tournament more accessible, a third category
for English as a second language students was introduced four years ago.
Rawson said that since the beginning there has been a turnout of about
40 to 80 students each tournament. The spring semester typically has more
participants than the fall semester.
When students sign up, they are broken into small groups with five to
seven students speaking and being graded by two judges. The judges range
from a variety of backgrounds, including teachers and administrators,
to people from the community, such as business owners and spouses of teachers.
The judging pair is typically a communication teacher and a member of
the community. Rawson said the idea is to have two different points of
views, one from a teacher’s standpoint and a more general one.
To judge, a teacher or administrator must have had at least one year of
speech and debate experience. Before the event, all the judges are given
an orientation on what to look for in a speech and how the grading system
works.
On the ballot, the judges must consider several grading criteria. First,
they must rank the students’ speeches in the group they had from
first to fifth place.
There are not any ties allowed for the first four positions and the remaining
students get the fifth place position.
In addition to being ranked according to their immediate peers, the students
are also given a number on a scale from one to 25.
A 25 represents a superior speech and a one is a speech that was unprepared.
Finally, there is a section where the judges rank 10 different aspects
of the speech on a one-to-five scale with five being the top score.
Ballots are handed back to the students so they can see what their strengths
and weaknesses were.
Ana Belen Berrios Vanegas won first place in the ESL competition. She
is the first level-one ESL student to win the tournament in that section.
Her instructor, Christine Beckman, who is also her neighbor, said they
worked very hard practicing the winning speech that Vanegas gave.
Vanegas’ speech was on Nicaragua and its tourism attractions. To
prepare for her speech, she used the library and the internet as sources,
along with her own personal experience.
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