CRITICISM IN THE

CLASSROOM
• The nature and values of criticism
• Cultural differences
• Standards and principles of criticism
THE NATURE AND VALUES OF CRITICISM
■ Criticism is a process of evaluating a speech, of rendering(presenting) a judgement of its values. It can
be both negative and positive.
■ Criticism can be of great value. Its major value in the classrooms that it helps to improve the public
speaking skills. Through the constructive criticism of others, speakers can learn more about the
principles of public speaking.
■ Criticism also helps identify standards for evaluating the wide variety of speeches.
■ When giving criticism, the speaker recognizes that is being heard and that the listeners care enough
about his speech to offer suggestions for improvements.
■ Criticism can be difficult for both the critic and the person criticised. The critic may feel uncomfortable
to offer any criticism of the fear that it may offend the speaker leading t o more harm than good.
■ Another obstacle facing offering criticism, is that it’s a positions with which others may disagree. But
even though, it helps the speaker by offering another perspective.
■ When learning how to offer and to receive criticism, it will become a become an effective teaching and
learning tool for sharpening the stills and every aspect of public speaking.
Cultural differences
■ There is a vast cultural differences in what is considered proper when it comes to criticism. For example
criticism will be viewed very differently depending on whether the members come from an individualist
culture or a collective culture.
■ Those who come from cultures that are highly individual and competitive may find public criticism a
normal part of the learning process. Those who come from culture that are more collective and that
emphasize the group the group rather than the individual are likely to find giving and receiving public
criticism uncomfortable. Thus the people from individual culture are may readily criticise and expect the
same courtesy from the listeners. On the other hand, persons from collective culture may feel the need to
be polite and courteous than help someone learn a skill. In some cultures is more important to be kind to
the person than telling them the truth, so they will just give some false complement.
■ These differences may be lessened if they are discussed openly. Verderber suggested that some people
will be more comfortable with criticism one its explained that it is a norm of public speaking and it
helps the speaker to improve by being evaluated. Others may feel more comfortable with written
criticism or, perhaps private consultations.
Standards and Principles of Criticism:
 Standard of criticism:
Effectiveness: this standard judges the speech in terms of whether or not it achieves its purpose. for
example, is the purpose is to sell soap, then the speech is effective if it sells soap and ineffective if it fails to
do that. However, the problem with this approach is that the effectiveness of a speech cant be always
measured. Some speeches have some long term effect that you can see immediately after finishing the
speech.
Universality: the universality standard (murphy 1958) asks to what extent does the speech addresses the
values and issues that are significant to all people in all times. A similar standard is that of historical
justification which asks to what extent the speech thesis and purpose justified by subsequence historical
event. Another standard which is of ethical merit. This standard asks to what extent the speech argue for
what is true, moral, humane, or good.
Conformity to the principles of the art: with this standard a speech is positively evaluated when it follows
the principles of public speaking establishes by the critics, the theorists, etc. and negatively evaluated as it
deviates from public speaking principles ( worthwhile, relevant, interesting to the listeners…) The
advantage of this standard is that will let you master the principles by applying them to your unique
situations
 Say something positive:
Say Something Positive: strengthening the already positive aspects of someone’s public speaking
performance is a part of a critic’s function. It is more positive to focus on the positive characteristics of a
speech first rather than spilling out there the weakness. Tell the speaker what you like first then bring up
some negative points and suggest how they may be corrected. Remember the irreversibility of
communication, what you say can’t be taken back.
Be specific: Criticism is more effective wen it is specific. Specifying and also justifying where exactly
was the problem can help the speaker to know exactly what he did wrong and therefore improve.
Be Objective: Transcend ( go beyond) you biases as best you can. Remember, that you are evaluating the
speech in terms of the extent to which it conforms to the principles of public speaking.
Limit Criticism: limit your criticism to one or two points to not overwhelm the speaker. Your criticism
should carry value to the speaker.
Be Constructive: by criticising you not tackling what has worked in the past but you are suggesting
insights that will prove useful in the future to the speaker.
Focus on Behaviour: focusing criticism on what the speaker did and said during the actual speech. Try
avoiding to assume the speakers thoughts. And focus on the thoughts he chose to say.
Own Your Own Criticism : take responsibility of your comments. The best way to express this owner ship
is to use the ‘ I-messages’ rather than ‘you-messages’ or ‘you should-messages’
Use Conformity to The Principles of The Arts Guidelines: the following series of principles will help
you look at the speech through the standards of the principles of the art of public speaking. Also you may find
it useful to use it as a check list in constructing your own public speech:
• The Subject and Purpose: the speech should be worth while, relevant, and interesting to the
audience. The purpose should be clear and sufficiently narrow so that it can be achieved in the
allotted time.
• The Audience, Occasion, and Context: a public speech is designed for a specific audience and
occasion and takes the into account the characteristics of the audience.
• Research: public speaking should be based on accurate information. The topic should be thoroughly
researched and the speaker needs to demonstrate a command of the subject matter.
• The thesis and Major Propositions: the speech should have one clear thesis to which the major
propositions in the speech are clearly related.
• Supporting materials: the speech propositions should be supported by a variety of appropriate
supporting materials that explain or prove their validity.
• Organization
• Style and language: these two should help the audience understand the speaker’s message.
• The conclusion and introduction, and transitions: the intro should bring the audience’s attention
while the conclusion should sum all the information and should be understood as a conclusion.
Transition should connect logically the various parts of the speech.
• Delivery: an effective deliver should maintain audience attention and help the speaker emphasize the
speech’s ideas.