ScotSpeak sees success | The Courier

While some students are plagued with fears of public speaking, the Monmouth College speech and debate team, ScotSpeak, divided and conquered at the Boilermaker Special Speech and Debate Tournament, held at Purdue University on Oct. 26-27.? The members of ScotSpeak travel to various tournaments throughout the semester and compete against other college teams in a variety of public speaking events.

Freshman Amber Berge captured the top novice award in informative speaking and president of ScotsSpeak, sophomore Aimee Miller, was one point away from breaking into the finals for the categories of the Program Oral Interpretation and Impromptu speaking.

?Coming so close to participating in a finals round was a real honor,? said Miller. ?Regardless of whether or not I actually got in, and it?s really inspired me to put even more effort into my events to ensure that I break next tournament.?

Director of Forensics and adviser for the program, Kyle Christensen, credits the students for the team?s continued success.? ?By far, the students involved with ScotSpeak have been the largest contributing factor to the success this season. Generally speaking, they have shown a lot of commitment and enthusiasm to the team, and they have established a true sense of camaraderie with one another.?

Miller believes that besides providing motivation to improve her speaking, ScotSpeak has other benefits.

?ScotSpeak can be real life applicable, such as if your boss was to ask for a presentation on a limited time,? Miller said. ?You also get to meet new people at different schools and are a fun time.?

Miller highly recommends joining the ScotSpeak, regardless of prior ability.

The Purdue tournament was the fourth for the team this semseter, all of which has seen success for the team. They compete again at University of Wisconsin in Madison this weekend.

Christensen has high hopes for this weekend?s competition.? ?I feel quite optimistic about our chances for success at this weekend?s tournament. We?re got a couple of veteran members who have been working on their events throughout the entire semester and have solid, polished material that should perform well in competition.?

Miller highly recommends joining the ScotSpeak and encourages people to join, regardless of prior ability. The team has created their own peer review system for writing, editing, and rehearsing speeches.? This allows them to give constructive feedback to each other.

?It?s great to see how eager they are to support each other, a very necessary step to forming a cohesive and successful team,? said Christensen.

Max Seisser
Contributing Writer

Source: http://mccourier.com/2012/11/09/scotspeak-sees-success/

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