Sunday, October 19, 2008

The Experience of Being a Test Speaker for Division Contest

The Division C Humorous Speech & Evaluation Contest was held on 18 Oct 2008 at SEGI University College. I would like to share the real experience of being a test speaker of a division contest.

Well, the division contest was a little different from the area or club contest. This is because the competing participants were chosen from the best speakers from their respective areas. Thus, the quality of the speech presented by each participant for the humorous contest was rather high. As I was concentrating on their humorous speeches, I (as the test speaker) told to myself that I need to upgrade my speech to a level where it would be applicable for a division contest. I begun to think fast the ways that could improve my speech as the time for my presentation was getting closer. But there was nothing much modification that could be done at the last minute.

Strangely, I did not feel the nervousness during the refreshment period just after the completion of humorous speech. However, when everyone was called back to the hall to start the evaluation contest, I could feel the nervousness starting to grow up in my body. The hall was full of audiences. I waited quietly till my name was called to present my speech.

Standing on the stage, in front of the audiences, I started to present my speech. The introduction part was quite difficult for me as I was still in nervous position. But then, the body and the conclusion went smoothly as I could feel myself getting normalized to the situation as I went through the speech. ‘Thank you’ was the final sentence of my speech and it was over.

My speech title was “The Priceless Glory of the Atmosphere”, a brief explanation about the formation of clouds, its categories, rain and lightning. It was actually the English version of the speech that I had presented in Bahasa Malaysia during the UM TMC club meeting of the theme “Hari Raya’ with some modifications.

Next was the evaluation session. Five competing participants evaluated on my presentation. There were two similarities of evaluation points from all the evaluators.

(a) I was really passionate in presenting about clouds
(b) It would be better to use the visual aids

Other than that, all the evaluators have different points of view and it would definitely help me to improve my public speaking in the upcoming sessions. Thank you, evaluators for the concrete points of improvement.
I would say that it was a fantastic experience of being a test speaker in a division contest. I will be looking forward to other division contests for a different and new experiences.

Sorry, I didn't capture any photos.

TM Rishi
VPPR,
UM TMC.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rishi!!
You didnt tell us that you were gonna be a test speaker :(
We really wanted to go see you..
I'm sorry we didnt make it there. We really wanted to go..anyway, if you are gonna be a test speaker again, pls pls tell us k? So that we can make a date in our calendars.
But I'm sure you did wonderful. We'll go check with division C and see how well you fared ;)
We're glad you stepped outta the comfort zone of UM Tmc and went all the way to Division C to be a test speaker! Simply awesome. I bet it was a great experience now, wasnt it?
Anyway, great job. You made us and UM Tmc so so proud. We're getting famous! Woohoo~!

Anonymous said...

Dear UM Toastmasters,
Now I know where Toastmaster Rishi came from, and none other than UMTMC again (after somebody spoke in Area C4 as test speaker). It's always challenging and fun to enter contest, weather your are a constestant or participants in anyway. In anykind of evaluation, it's a challenging and mind boggling affair. A lot of us realise that evaluation skills is something that you would need in your daily life, be it work or family or friendship affair. I recently went for a presentation by Panasonic, guest what, we have to make comment and their proposal no matter how good or bad it maybe to our company and this is where your skills comes in, uncover those unfair practises and ensure it;s accepted and maintain that relationship still require in corporate world.
I am glad students like you nowadays are more alerts of the social skills require after their life in campus. All the best to you in your never ending journey of Public Speaking.
Alvin Ang
President 08/09
Subang Toastmasters Club