It should be a college student’s worst nightmare. Given half an hour, prepare a seven-minute speech on a current event and deliver it without notes — complete with 10 to 12 citations.
This form of torture has a name: extemporaneous speaking, and Communication senior Ivan Chen does it competitively. He even enjoys it.
Chen and his teammates on the Northwestern Speech Team will compete at the American Forensics Association National Tournament this weekend in Long Beach, Calif.
On Wednesday night the team presented its Third Annual NU Speech Team Showcase in the Louis Room in front of a crowd of about 100 people. Speakers performed in seven events — including dramatic interpretation, after-dinner speaking and impromptu speaking.
“I’m so pleased to have such a broad spectrum of talent on this team,” said Ric Roe, NU’s director of forensics. “We’ve grown from three members to 28 over the course of five years. The growth of the team has been inspiring.”
In Long Beach the team will compete against more than 100 schools from across the country. In two weeks the team will travel to Western Illinois University for the National Forensics Association National Championships, where it will face even more teams.
Although the team is about half the size of many of its competitors, Medill junior Gabe Gutierrez said the members make up for their limited numbers with the quality of their speeches. This year marks the first time students have qualified for nationals in all 11 events at the competition.
“The whole season is building up to nationals,” said Gutierrez, who specializes in dramatic interpretation. “It’s the one time when every single team in the nation can showcase what they’ve been working on.”
The members of the speech team began practicing in September, meeting every Monday. Roe and Margaret Kaszonyi, assistant director of forensics, estimated that they spent eight to 10 hours each week coaching the speakers in preparation for competition.
The team has traveled across Illinois and the Midwest for tournaments in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin.
This year the members trekked to Peoria, Ill., five times, and they’re now looking forward to the more tropical destination of California, Kaszonyi said.
Jason Warren, the team’s president, was the 2003 National Champion in extemporaneous speaking. As emcee of the NU Speech Team Showcase on Wednesday night, the Communication senior introduced each event and explained the rules and time constraints governing competitions.
For impromptu speaking, for example, Communication junior Jonathan Carter was given a quote suggested by an audience member: “Little boys who lie should expect tragedy on a regular basis.”
He had roughly a minute and a half to outline a five-and-a-half minute speech, drawing on examples from such varied sources as the life of Napoleon, the Cartoon Network show “Dexter’s Laboratory” and movies such as “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”
In extemporaneous speaking Chen spent countless hours cutting articles out of newspapers and magazines, compiling massive tubs of evidence. For his topic, “Are concerns over fluctuating currency prices valid?” Chen had to quickly reference and memorize themes of 10 to 12 applicable articles in his 30 minutes of preparation time.
Communication junior Lisa Hutmacher performed in the after-dinner speaking event, in which the speaker has 10 minutes to persuade the audience — in this case, about the ineffectiveness of visual images in communication — using humor.
Gutierrez said speech competitions have been a big part of both his high school and college experiences.
“I love to perform,” he said. “It’s great to know that I am affecting the audience through humor or drama, or just plain making them think.”
