Quick tips for Toastmasters of all levels.
“How long is five to seven minutes in words?” “How do I give a good evaluation?” “What are good advanced manuals to start with?” I get a lot of questions about the Toastmasters program, and by request, I’m answering ten of these questions here.
“How long is five to seven minutes in words?”
Attaining a sense of time is one of the harder things to get down as a speaker, and Toastmasters is big on enforcing time limits. Controlling the volume of content can be a struggle. There are multiple ways to make sure you’ll fit within these time limits. The first way is to time three runs of your speech, and trim or add appropriately. This can be hit or miss, however.
The second way is to gauge your speaking rate according to words per minute. If your words per minute rate is 125 wpm, then you simply multiply the base rate by the number of minimum and maximum minutes allowed (eg: 5 x 125 = 625 and 7 x 125 = 875). Generally, seven hundred to eight hundred words will fit the bill. In your word processor, simply use the word count tool (for those of you who used word processors for school papers like myself, you almost certainly used this feature a lot to meet the instructor’s requirements).
A faster third method if you don’t want to calculate your exact word speed is to assume that two and a half double-spaced pages of text in your word processor equals five to seven minutes.
“What are some good advanced manuals to start with?”
Before getting into an answer to this, let me preface by saying that you should consider the advanced manuals that are going to be most beneficial to you. If you’re in a technical field, Technical Presentations is a manual to consider. If you’re in management, Speeches by Management would be an apt choice.
Starting off though, there are manuals that I recommend to a general audience. The good thing about these books is that most of the projects in them are the standard length of five to seven minutes, so they can easily fit within most club programs.
Speaking to Inform: This is a good, general purpose manual that almost everyone can use.
Specialty Speeches: This manual’s a potpourri of different topics, and makes for a wide variety of experiences. Good if you’re looking for direction, or variety.
Storytelling: An essential skill for any speaker is the ability to tell stories, and here’s the manual for doing that.
Humorously Speaking: Another talent worth developing is the ability to inject humor into your speeches.
Some manuals I recommend avoiding, unless your club is specialized:
The Discussion Leader: These projects are usually 20+ minutes long.
The Professional Speaker: Likewise. These projects are rather high level, as well.
All the other manuals are going to be according to your tastes and needs.
“How about some table topics hints?”
Sure. First off, there’s the SEER method, from Diana Booher. This stands for State, Elaborate, Example, and Restate. First, you state your answer in one to two sentences (whether it’s as simple as “yes”, “no”, or “I don’t know”). Next, you elaborate on the answer you give. After that, you give an example. Finally, you restate your answer.
Table topics questions usually are of one kind or another; one I would call “expansion” and the other “contraction”. Expansion questions are where you need to expand from a simple yes or no answer (or something that would otherwise be too short to fill the time). Contraction questions are the opposite. As an example, an extreme expansion question might be “what color is your hair?” and an extreme contraction question would be “Could you summarize the entirety of the cosmos?”.
For expansion-type questions, it’s essential to be able to think of semi-related topics and branch to those. For contraction-type questions, isolate a sliver, preferably the most important or most interesting bits, and talk about those.
If nothing else, feel free to answer a question someone else was asked, talk about a point of one of the speeches, recent events, etc. Always have a fallback.
“What are some evaluation frameworks I can use?”
One of the hardest skills to learn in TM is the evaluation, because it involves both speaking and detailed observation and listening. This can be quite intimidating; many new evaluators worry about what to watch for and how to organize their evaluation. I’ll cover the latter here.
The traditional method that TM espouses is the “sandwich method”, where you give a positive, a negative/area for improvement, another positive, etc. and end on a positive. This is an okay method, but it doesn’t tell you how many points you can get in.
Moving up from there, there’s the CODE method, which is short for Content, Organization, Delivery, and Effectiveness. CODE is alright, but I find it is very difficult to fit in everything you may want to talk about within the time frame of two to three minutes (essentially, the 3 minute cap gives you 45 seconds for each section). It’s good for a generalized written evaluation or as notes for your oral evaluation, though.
The next framework you can try is the 3-2-1 method. This is short for three strong points, two areas for improvement, and one “stretch goal”. The first two are obvious. The “one” element is a little different from other methods — it’s intended to be your opinion on the biggest opportunities for future growth for the speaker, focusing on how they can optimize their strengths in the future. One big advantage of this method is that it tends to keep you within time more often than not by limiting how many points you cover.
Finally, there’s the GBB method, short for “what was good about the speech, what you can do better next time, and what was best about the speech”. GBB is a great method if for no other reason that you always end on a big positive.
Just a note for any framework you use, if you decide to use one, generally you’ll want to follow this order:
Opening remarks (very short comment) and audience/speaker address
Brief 1-2 sentence overview of objectives
Method of your choosing
Closing remarks
“Do I have to do the Competent Communicator program in order?”
No, but it is highly recommended as the projects build on one another.
“Can I get credit for advanced communicator and advanced leader even as I’m working on competent communicator and competent leader?”
Yes. Make sure you document your progress, however.
“Can I reuse a speech?”
Barring high level international speech contests, yes! Most professional speakers and comedians work with a small pool of content that they customize for the occasion, and thus you can do much the same in TM. However, your speech should meet the requirements of the project you’re working on.
“Is it okay to use notes?”
The TM manuals strongly discourage this, but this is one area I respectfully disagree on. Even if a speaker has their material down pat, notes can be useful to make sure they cover what they want to in the order they want to. Some high level / highly paid professionals still use note cards (nevermind the whole teleprompter industry!).
If you are great without notes and don’t need ‘em, that’s wonderful. If you want to use notes, that’s fine too. The important point to keep in mind here is one question: What will benefit your audience more?
If you’re going to use notes, my recommendation is to use colored index cards. Check out different sizes to see what works for you. There’s also the two note sheet approach, where you use two sheets of letter-sized paper side by side, with your notes printed in large print. You can underline, highlight, bold, and so on as needed to bring out words and phrases that will help you the most.
“How should I stand?”
The TM program usually recommends standing with feet hip width apart, weight distributed across the feet evenly. This is not a bad stance, but some may find the forty-five degree stance more to their liking. To do it, point your dominant foot forward, and out a few inches. Place your other foot a few inches behind and outward. Point that foot out at forty to fifty degrees, and bend very slightly at the knees (yes, a pictoral representation would help here).
“What are the Leadership Excellence, Better Speaker Series, and Successful Club Series manuals?”
As part of the advanced communication and leadership requirements, Toastmasters requires that you do projects in these manuals. Doing two of either the Leadership Excellence or Successful Club Series projects are necessary for the Advanced Leader Bronze award. Two projects from the Better Speaker Series are necessary for the Advanced Communicator Silver award.
SCS focuses on Toastmasters meta material, such as mentoring, meeting roles, and the TM educational program. LE focuses on leadership topics (naturally), and BSS focuses on essential speaking skills.
The content for these projects is provided, and if you want, you can read them verbatim, but you’re strongly encouraged to come up with your own script covering the points within.
