Excellence in Eloquence

On April 28th, on Tuesday evening I was asked to be a judge at the annual Peel District School Board "Excellence In Eloquence", Peel's annual junior-intermediate public-speaking challenge and Rotary is one of the proud sponsors of this event. A few of you have already experienced being a judge at this speaking contest. This event is now in its 13th year. The Junior Semi-Finals were held on Thursday, April 28th which was held at Hazel McCallion's Senior Public School. The room was packed with parents, grandparents and siblings.    The Finals were held this past Tuesday evening and I hope one of you were able to be a judge.

The speeches were judged based on Peel's oral language scales and the Ontario Language curriculum. Voice, facial expressions, mannerisms, organization, and content were important components of this evaluation. A mark of zero for None, never, or no effectiveness ranged to a four for all consistently, high degree of effectiveness. I found it difficult to give marks at times. They were all great speeches. There was even a timer. 1 point off was given for 5 seconds under 3 minutes and 1 point off for every 5 seconds over 5 minutes. At this evenings speeches there were no deductions taken off by any student. The top two students from the semi finals were automatically entered in the finals.  From the finals one student advances to the Provincials.  I sure hope it was one from the semi finals.

Helga