The View From The Judge's Table

Last Wednesday I had my first experience as a judge for the English Bowl! This was the first of the internal rounds for the speech competition. In May, each of the four schools will send two 8^th, 9^th and 10^th graders to the final speeches competition. Before then there is a great deal of preparation which must go into teaching the students how to give speeches and determining who will compete in the finals.

For the past few weeks the English teacher and I have been working with the students on how to write speeches using the classic five paragraph format. The first paragraph begins with a hook to get the listener interested, followed by a short introduction to the topic and a listing of the three main ideas about the topic. Each of the next three paragraphs then elaborates on one of the main points. Finally a concluding paragraph leaves the listener convinced (inshallah!) and sums up the speaker’s point. While this format is something I learned the very first time I started writing papers and speeches, many of my students have never been exposed to such a formulaic writing technique. Needless to say, some were more resistant toward it than others. We worked on practicing writing speeches with the students and with some of the students, it took several times of me explaining how important good structure is and helping them re-write their speech before they came anywhere near to the structure we wanted.

Jump forward to last Wednesday, the first day of judging. Every single student in these three grades gave a speech for their classmates and a panel of three judges, including yours truly! Some of the students clearly just wanted to get the exercise over with and had not prepared very well. Most were pretty good, having a good structure but definitely still learning proper speech techniques. Finally, there were a few in each grade who really shown brightly! I was so proud of them for learning this new speech writing technique and running with it. Some had even gone a bit beyond the formula to make a really interesting and engaging speech!

A 10th grader gives her speech to the class.

For me, the experience of being a judge was the most fascinating part. I have auditioned,  and interviewed for a lot of things so far in my life and I anticipate having even more in the future. But this was the first time I have ever been in the judge’s seat. 

It is a surprising amount of work to be a judge. We wanted to be kind but, of course, some students had clearly prepared better than others; I never realized how painfully obvious it is when someone does not put in the actual work. It was clear some students had printed their speeches off the internet. The ones that really broke my heart were the students who clearly wanted to do well, but just were not as good as some of their peers. I could tell that some had worked hard and practiced but just had not quite managed to master the art of giving a good, effective two minute speech yet. Thankfully we were allowed to give a few students in each class two extra points, so even though these students will not move on to the next round, they will get some extra credit for putting in good work!

The esteemed panel of judges. That's me in the middle!

Although being a judge is a lot of work, it was also really fun! Not gonna lie, it was awesome being the one all cool, calm and collected in the back, scratching notes and looking with a critical eye. It was such a change from being the one who has to gather their nerves and do their very best; hoping that these particular 2 minutes will show all the work that has gone into preparing for them. 

In some ways, the craziness of switching sides from the speech-giving side to the judging of the table has been a lot of what I have learned so far this year. I spent a solid 17 years of my life in formal education but always on the student side of the classroom. To be suddenly thrown to the teacher’s side has been more challenging than I expected. Likewise, going from being the one giving the speech in class to being the one judging it is such a change of pace from what I have been used to. It is refreshing, exciting and all kinds of challenging to take on a different role in the classroom and in the workforce at large here. I am as grateful for these workforce life lessons as  I am for all that I am learning about the context here.