田朝霞老师的点评：

The topic is well chosen, familiar yet always intriguing—the mystery of the time, of the author and of the author’s own opinion, instantly arouses the audience’s interest. The structure of the speech is very clear as the speaker presents on the PPT. The speaker also makes effective use of signposts to remind the audience where he’s coming to. It is quite certain that the audience would easily follow the speaker.

The delivery is generally good. The speaker has a vibrant voice and modulates his volume well. He speaks in a calm manner and most of the time maintains a conversational style. He establishes himself as a mature and resourceful young man with decent manners and good education. He speaks much better when he speaks more quickly except when he reads the long quote from his cue card.

He concludes the speech successful by reminding the audience what he has covered.

There are aspects that the speaker may improve upon.

No. 1. The topic need to be further narrowed—“Hamlet, one of Shakespeare’s greatest play” does not give the audience any hint of what aspect the speaker intends to discuss about. Accordingly, the three subtopics—Hamlet as an Elizabethan play, where Shakespeare found his story, and Shakespeare’s opinion on acting as shown in Hamlet, seem to random choices. What do they culminate in? The speaker should have explained why he makes such a choice and what implications he really wants to make.

No. 2. The art of using PPT is not as obvious as most students think. In public speaking, we do not suggest the students displaying a complete sentence in the slide unless it is really necessary—for example, in the case of an important quote. This speaker does not seem to have much experience with PPT. He puts long sentences when only key words are needed. For example, “Revenge tragedies, in which the hero fights for justice and revenge before dying, were very common in the Elizabethan Age.” may be reduced to two phrases in two lines—“fights for justice” and “revenge before dying”. In contrast, the long quote which he reads from his cue cards seems a bit difficult for most of the audience to understand. This is where a display of part of the quote is needed.

No3. The speaker needs to further improve his pronunciation skills if he wants to get an A.

Firstly, pay attention to the English stress-timed rhythm patterns, which means only the stressed syllable—not all syllables or all words are stressed. For example, “Hamlet” is stressed on the first syllable only, that is, “Ham-” obviously stands out in the context and “-let” is weak.

Secondly, important information should be highlighted, often spoken slowly and with more emphasis. A typical example is, when saying “My topic is …” the speech should slow down and try to enunciate the topic very clearly. The same is true with topic sentences, transitions and conclusion.

Thirdly, the part which would predictably be difficult for the audience should also be uttered a bit slowly. The speaker should try to highlight the key phrases and words. In this speech, the long quote would be difficult for the audience to understand because it is uttered a bit too quickly and that neither the information focuses nor the boundaries of the sense groups are clear.

外籍教师James Michael Williams的点评：

Delivery speed and content fine, no problems.

Some pronunciation and intonation weaknesses. Would benefit from smiling more to engage the listeners.