Griffin Dugan

COM 336

Self Evaluation

My experience tutoring at the speaking center over the past few months has given me a

gratifying and unique opportunity to practice my public speaking skills from a coaching

perspective. One strength I believe I have cultivated in my sessions is the ability to relate to the

speakers. When I am giving feedback on their speech, I always try to draw from my personal

experiences, letting them know that I struggled in similar areas as well as giving pieces of advice

that worked for me. In doing so, I believe I made the tutoring sessions a lot less intimidating by

emphasizing that I was their peer instead of their superior. This helped the students feel safe in

our session, opening themselves up to constructive feedback. I also feel like I am able to use my

time management skills well to control the flow of sessions. With only twenty minutes to work,

every second counts, and I made sure to optimize out time together by negotiating priorities at

the beginning. Furthermore, I also chose to focus on the higher order concerns during my

feedback, as I felt that was a more useful way of using the time than nit-picking.

Going into my last two quarters, I want to continue to improve as a speech coach. I know

one thing I want to improve on is giving sincere compliments to the speaker. With our short time

together, I’m aware I have a tendency to focus on what needs to be fixed versus what went well.

I want students to leave sessions confident that they’re on the right track, versus freaked out that

they have to change so much. I also want to have a better grasp of stylistic devices so I can give

more specific advice for the commemorative and advocacy speeches. There have been several

sessions in which a writer was looking for suggestions to incorporate more style, and I could not
name concrete examples. Brushing up on common stylistic devices would help me to better

address student needs.

Being a tutor has reasserted the importance of arrangement and signposting, both in

speech and in writing. I found that it was often confusing and frustrating to try to critique student

speeches that lacked concrete organization, so I gained a new appreciation of including

arrangement. I make a more deliberate effort in my writing/speaking now to help my audience

understand what my argument is and where it is heading.

To future consultants, I would advise them to keep in mind that they don’t need to have

all the answers. We are undergraduates like most of the students we see, and so it’s unreasonable

for us or them to think we’re these pillars of sage wisdom. I’ve found sessions to be less stressful

and more helpful when I keep in mind that I am a peer tutor, and that tutoring is more of a

conversation than a lecture.