SPEECH ANALYSIS

Hi, world!

This post will be devoted to speech analysis.

It is important to prepare an effective public speech. But actually, it might be even more important to know how to evaluate speeches of other people, thus, to be able to see mistakes and learn from others. 

In this post I'm going to analyze an informative speech of a student from a previous year: "London accents".

You can get acknowledged with the speech itself:

 

№		Very effective (10, 9, 8)	Average (7, 6, 5)	Not effective  (4, 3,2, 1)	Max points	My points
I.	Introduction				10	7
	What technique(s) was used in the introduction?	The speaker started their speech with a set of rhetorical questions:  “Have you ever talked to Londoners? Or have you ever imagined this conversation?” I think the questions were quite appropriate here. They served as attention-getters.  Moreover, the speaker made a reference to the audience with the line: "I guess you want British people to pronounce words very clearly and slowly! This contributed to provoking the audience's interest in the further speech. However, frankly speaking, this line sounds with a slight shade of "arrogance" to me. I would rather replace the modal verb "want" with "would like" at least.
	Any link-element?	I guess "Of course it does not happen in real life" was a link-element.
	Was the thesis statement given?	Yes, it was given: "Londoners are famous for their peculiar accents which are quite different from each other."
	How effective was the introduction?	It was quite effective. The speaker used a preview, mentioned the aspects they were going to cover: "Nowadays we can distinguish three main accents I'd like to tell you about: Received Pronounciation, Cockney Accent and Estuary English"
II.	Body				10	5
	How well structured was the information presented?	The information was well-structured, divided into 3 parts, according to the 3 accents the speaker talked about. The body parts are clearly distinguished, thanks to the enumeration ( "The first accent,..the next accent,..the third accent"). However, I think the speaker should have used transitions, to link the parts together and let the speech flow a bit more naturally.
	What organizational structure was used in the body of the speech?	Outlining was used.
	How understandable was the information (was it clearly explained)?	The description of the accents was quite vague. I think it requires more information.  If we look at the first paragraph, for example, we can learn just a common information about the usage of the accent. There were no examples, but the useless facts the were already mentioned: "...it is the accent many people try to learn...not many people speak with this accent - not even Prince William".  Or: "It is the Standart British accent...It is the accent you will find if you look up the pronounciation of a word in a dictionary". I believe, the speaker should have rather included some examples, than giving just common facts. The second paragraph was provided with a couple of examples and had some kind of a reference to the audience: "Don't be shocked if...".  As for the third one, it contained about 50% of history of the accent. To my mind, it didn't correlate  to the main idea of the speech. The speaker should have concentrated on the present-time usage of the accent. And, again, no examples were provided.
	Quality of point-support (appropriateness, completeness, variety)	The quality of point-support was appropriate, but not complete or various.
	Use of facts, illustrations, examples, stories.	Some facts supported the speech.
	Was it coherent?	It was quite coherent.
III.	Conclusion				10	5
	What technique(s) was used in the conclusion?	The speaker used reference to the audience in the conclusion: "Knowing as much of them (accents) as possible will definitely help you get on well with every person you'll meet on London streets!"
	Were all the steps followed (summary, action, emotional appeal?)	There was a summary, a "kind of" action, but no emotional appeal.
	How effective was the conclusion?	It was average.
	Total points				30	17

What is your opinion on the given speech? Would you consider my evaluating fair enough? Please let me know in the comments down below! Thank you!

W