Eighteen Youngsters Compete at Public Speaking Contest

One of the many programs the Royal Canadian Legion carries out is a public speaking contest for school children. The children compete at their schools and then enter their local branch’s competition.

Yesterday we held our public speaking contest at the branch level. We had eighteen contestants from two local schools compete in three categories; grade 1-3, grades 4-6 and grades 7-9. There is a fourth category, Grades 10-12 but we don’t have a secondary school in our area.

Our Competition is Just the Beginning for Some

While nine of the contestants yesterday won certificate and cash prizes, only the top speaker in each division continued on to the next level. At the next level, Zone, they will compete against speakers from nine other branches. The top winners move from there to District to Area and then they arrive at the Provincial competition.

The provincial competition provides each winner from the Area competition an expense paid trip to the site of the Provincial competition along with one parent. The winner in each division receives a gold or silver medal and cash.

The Speeches

The students select their own topics and their work must be their original work. If they do quotes from others, they must be brief and attributed. Visual aids, props, notes, cue cards may be used. Electronic media may not be used. Judges may give or take marks according to the manner the props are used.

The speakers and family wait for the start

Each school can send as many contestants as they wish to the competition. However, each school chose to have the children compete before they came to the branch.

The Judging

Youth Ed Chair (standing) checks with the judges if they are ready

Four judges form the judges panel. Canada being an officially bilingual country, one judge must be fluent in French. We rarely have had anyone do their speech in French, but, we have to be prepared in case a child arrives and does so. While all four judges will judge each speech, there is only three of them which are used for scoring the speech. The scorekeeper rotates out one judge each time.

Each speech can be 3-5 minutes in length for the three categories we work with. The grades 1-3 are not penalized if they are over or under on time. In the other two categories a 5% penalty on the total of the judge’s scores is applied for being over or short. There were a few that were over yesterday but weren’t in the running for any prizes.

Two Timekeepers Ready to Go

Each speech is given a numerical score out of 100. The scoring covers delivery (20%), material (44%), and language & literary form (36%). At the end of each speech, the completed judge’s cards are brought to the scorekeeper who then tabulates the scores and enters them on a standing sheet. It’s all about numbers in the end.

Getting Underway

The parents and speakers have arrived. Our doorkeepers having registered each child at the door. Just before we start each group is called to the back to draw cards for their order of speaking.

Doorkeepers Let Speakers Draw for Their Vote Order

The Youth Education Chairman introduces himself and reviews the rules of the competition. He reminds the audience to turn off their cell phones. Reminds the children there is no clock in the room, so they have to be aware of their own timing on their speeches. They are also reminded to use their outside voices so the judges can be sure to hear them.

He then introduces me to conduct the opening ceremony and we’re ready to get underway.

The Speeches

No recording is allowed during the speeches so I wasn’t able to take photos of any of the children speaking.

We had a variety of topics spoken about.

The children are very creative. The three speakers in the grades 1-3 group spoke about: dogs, being an immigrant family and my country. This is a tough group. For most of them, it is their first time to be speaking in public. None of the children froze and backed out of speaking which was great. It often happens here. One child dropped his voice to low about midway through but other than that they got through their speeches well.

In the grades 4-6 group there was eight speakers. Family was a recurrent theme in this group but each was a different angle. Topics covered in this group were: the significance of colours, alopechia (a hair disorder), my big sister, life with little brothers, I love reading, sharks, living with a large family and my parents might be right. Yes, a pre-teen actually considered her parents may be right. Two of the speakers in this group were short on time but since they weren’t in the top three, the penalty wasn’t applied.

In the grades 7-9 group there was seven speakers. The topics were diverse and the competition was stiff. I served as scorekeeper for the afternoon. Most of the speeches were just a point apart on the standings. The topics covered here included: racism, neurotransmitters, vector borne diseases, the titanic, sibling differences, spousal abuse & violence against women and air pollution. None of the speakers incurred a time penalty

At the End There Will Be Winners

All the children have done great coming out to speak in front of a group but at the end of the day we have to announce the winning speeches. Here are the groups from each category. I wont give their names but I will give their topics. First place in each carries on to the next level.

Grades 1-3

(l)2nd My Background, (m)1st Dogs, (r) 3rd My Country

Grades 4-6

(l)2nd Alopechia, (m)1st My Everyday Life of 7, (r) 3rd I Love to Read

Grades 7-9

(l)2nd Racism, (m)1st Air Pollution, (r) 3rd Violence Against Women

Certificates are presented, pictures are taken and I do the closing ceremony to end another year of public speaking at the branch. Over 30 years ago, in another branch, I was one of those speakers. Somethings do stay the same and the faces change.

---

---

If you like this, please follow me and upvote the post.

If you’d like to see the other days I’ve posted, just visit my profile

If you’d like to be notified when I post next, join my mailing list here.

If you’d like to join my curation trail on Streemian, please click here

---