Speech Choir Competition: What It Is, Where It’s Run and How It’s Judged

Speech Choir is the team spoken-word class at the Rovers and Roverettes level of a council talent contest for registered scouts in Bohol: a group of at least ten delivers one piece together as a single voice in five to seven minutes, marked out of 100 on interpretation, delivery, stage presence, costume and sound effects, and mastery of the piece.

A speech choir is a group that speaks rather than sings. Instead of one reciter holding the stage, ten or more people share a single piece, splitting lines between small groups, joining in unison for the big moments, and letting a solo voice step forward and fall back into the group. In the council talent contest in Bohol that carries it in eTalenter, Speech Choir is the team class for the oldest of the five scout levels, Rovers and Roverettes. It is one of fifteen printed contests, and it is the only group spoken-word class in the programme: the younger levels have solo poem, declamation and oration classes, and the other two Rover classes are a mural team and a balitaw pair.

A round runs on a simple frame. The team performs one piece in a slot of five to seven minutes, and the panel marks it once, out of 100, on a five-block sheet. The rules held by eTalenter require at least ten members. They do not say whether the piece is chosen by the team or set by the organiser, whether it must be original, or whether it must be in a particular language, so this page does not claim any of those; the template leaves the language open and a coordinator should state the requirements in the registration notes.

The sheet tells the team what a speech choir is for. Interpretation and delivery are worth 30 marks each, so sixty of the hundred marks go on how the team understands the piece and how clearly and together it speaks: voice quality, fluency, pronunciation, blending and harmony are all named in the delivery block. Stage presence is worth 20 and covers poise, eye contact and impact on the audience. Costume and sound effects, worth 10, reward attire that fits the concept of the piece and sound that is well produced, so a team may use a few effects but is marked on how well they serve the piece. The last 10 marks are for mastery of the piece, which is where a team that has learned it thoroughly separates from one that is still reading.

Organisers like a speech choir at this level because it asks the oldest scouts to work as one body. It needs very little equipment, a clear stage and a timekeeper, yet it rewards the habits of leadership: rehearsal discipline, listening to the person beside you and sharing the spotlight. The five-to-seven-minute window also keeps a field of large teams to a manageable running order.

Where Speech Choir is run

The title appears in one eTalenter template, a council talent contest for registered scouts in Bohol, in the Philippines, where it is a Team item open to both genders at the Rovers and Roverettes level only, with the language left open. The same rules were also used for a wider area talent quest in the same year. This page does not describe any other event as running a class called Speech Choir; similar group-speaking classes elsewhere go by other titles, such as Choral Speaking or Verse Speaking, and are described on their own pages.

• Philippines (Bohol)

Key facts

• A Team item in the one template that carries it, open to both genders
• Offered at one of the five scout levels only, Rovers and Roverettes; the younger levels have solo speech classes instead
• The printed rules ask for at least ten members and a slot of five to seven minutes; the template sets seven minutes as the maximum and prints no warning bell
• Scored out of 100 in five blocks: interpretation 30, delivery 30, stage presence 20, costume and sound effects 10, mastery of the piece 10
• The rules print scout levels, not ages, so the age band in the template (18 to 25) is a placeholder the coordinator should set
• The language is not printed as a requirement, so the template leaves it open

On eTalenter, Speech Choir is filed under Literary and typically scored with Marks. It appears in 1 ready-made event templates — each one can adjust its time limit, age-group assignment and scoring setup independently.

Across the templates that use it, Speech Choir is most often entered as an Team competition, typically scored out of 100, commonly time-limited to around 7 minutes where a limit is set.

What judges look at in Speech Choir

What a Speech Choir panel is actually weighing up, and where the marks are usually won or lost:

• Interpretation (30): how the piece is understood and presented, which means the team has decided what the piece is about and every change of pace, volume and mood follows from that reading rather than from habit
• Delivery (30): quality of voice, fluency, pronunciation, blending and harmony; the panel is listening for ten or more voices that sound like one, with endings of words landing together and no single voice sticking out by accident
• Stage presence (20): poise, eye contact and audience impact; a team that stands still, looks up and faces the audience with its whole body reads as confident, while heads buried in a script lose marks here
• Costume and sound effects (10): attire that relates to the concept of the piece and well-produced sound; a plain matching turn-out and one or two clean effects beat a crowd of props that distracts from the words
• Mastery of the piece (10): how thoroughly the team knows it; a team that does not need prompts, enters on time and finishes together has these marks in hand
• Time is a quiet judge: the printed window is five to seven minutes, so a piece that is much shorter or longer than that is a risk the team controls by editing the script, not by speeding up

Treat these as the judging focus, not a fixed rubric: publish your own weighted criteria for Speech Choir under Scoring Setup, or start from the full recitation & poetry judging criteria guide.

How to prepare for Speech Choir

How entrants and their teachers usually get Speech Choir right on the day:

• Ask the organiser whether the piece is chosen by the team or set, which language is expected, and what happens if a performance runs outside the five-to-seven-minute window, because the rules held here do not say
• Choose or write a piece with real shape: a clear opening, a build and an ending, with enough change of mood to give the voices something to do for five or more minutes
• Mark up one shared script showing who speaks each line, where the whole team joins in, and where a single voice leads, and make sure every member has the same copy
• Rehearse the delivery block first: read together slowly until every word ends at the same moment, then add pace and volume changes only once the blend is steady
• Practise standing and facing the audience without the script in your hands; mastery and eye contact are worth marks, so the piece should be learned, not read
• Decide costume and sound effects last and keep them modest: matching attire that fits the piece, and effects you can produce cleanly and in time, then rehearse the full piece against the clock with everything in place

Frequently asked questions

Is Speech Choir judged individually or as a team?

Across eTalenter’s templates it’s most often run as an Team entry, though an organiser can set either participation type when assigning the item to an age group.

What is a speech choir?

A group that performs a poem or other prepared piece by speaking it together, splitting lines among sub-groups, joining in unison and passing a line from one voice to another. In this contest it is the team spoken-word class for the Rovers and Roverettes level.

How many people are needed in a speech choir?

The printed rules ask for at least ten members. The platform has no field for a minimum team size, so a coordinator should state it in the registration notes.

How long can a Speech Choir performance be?

The rules print a slot of five to seven minutes. The template sets seven minutes as the maximum and prints no warning bell, so a coordinator who wants a bell or a minimum should add it.

Is a speech choir the same as Choral Speaking or Verse Speaking?

They are close cousins: a group speaking a piece together. The titles belong to different syllabuses, and this page describes only the Speech Choir class in this contest, with its five-block sheet. The Choral Speaking and Verse Speaking pages on this site describe those classes in their own events.

How is a speech choir marked?

Out of 100: interpretation 30, delivery 30, stage presence 20, costume and sound effects 10, and mastery of the piece 10. Voice quality, fluency, pronunciation, blending and harmony all sit inside the delivery block.

Want the full judging picture? Read the full recitation & poetry judging criteria guide, or browse every literary competition item.