WACS student Zachary McGuire took first place in the 13th Annual JCC College Connections Speech contest.

In a world of e-mails, Instagrams and text messages, Westfield Academy and Central School’s Zachary McGuire knows the importance of a good speech.

McGuire took first place in the 13th Annual JCC College Connections Speech contest at the end of April. The Westfield students agreed that Zachary Maguire and McKenna Campbell should represent WACS at the speech contest, and “both did a fantastic job,” according to WACS social media posts.

“I was definitely nervous, especially after watching the first six contestants go before me,” McGuire said. “I overcame that nervousness by convincing myself that I was excited to go up on stage. I find that if you smile and repeat that in your head, it reduces the amount of mental space left to be nervous.”

According to WACS Speech Teacher Laura Wilson, the College Connections Public Speaking teachers decided on the topic of “The United Nations has 17 sustainable goals; which goal would you advocate for and how might we advance that goal?”

“I have all of my students prepare the speech and deliver it for a grade, and then we all choose who we want to see represent Westfield,” Wilson said. “I don’t make anyone do it who doesn’t want to, but this year the top two contenders were willing to participate.”

Wilson explained the contest entails a round of prepared speeches and then a round of impromptu speeches. “That’s where it gets really interesting!” she said. “This year there were eight contestants and they were judged by three members of the Jamestown community. The scores were based on 70% from the prepared speech and 30% from the impromptu speech.”

Wilson said McGuire is a hardworking, dedicated student. “He is a thinker and challenges himself to experience new adventures,” she said. “In addition, Zach is very competitive, so he pushed himself to completely memorize his speech and practice impromptu topics that he came up with himself.”

McGuire said he used several techniques to prepare for the event. “I practiced my prepared speech with a flashlight in my hand to mimic holding a microphone,” he said. “I also came up with 25 potential impromptu questions with ideas for what to say. One of these questions happened to be the same one I got on the day of the competition.”

McGuire said he was thrilled with placing first. “I was very excited that my hard work had paid off,” he said. “Practicing for and participating in the competition was a challenge for me, so placing first was very rewarding.”

Wilson said there are several elements to a good speech. “In public speaking, we are looking for a way to hook the audience, a clear purpose, organization and good transitions,” she said. “In addition, we want good delivery that includes few, if any fillers, eye contact, minimal distracting gestures, appropriate tone and good volume.”

Wilson said learning the techniques of speech helps her students grow in confidence and willingness to try new things. “The amount of growth that I see in the comfort level of my students from the beginning of the year to the end of the year is tremendous,” she said. “People, as a general rule, hate public speaking. It’s their number one fear. My biggest goal is to just show them that they should not be afraid, so I try to make the classes as much fun as possible.”

The skills that they learn in speech class will help the students throughout their lives, Wilson said. “We play games where they need to be silly, we practice impromptu speaking, we spend days writing speeches, we watch others speak and we support each other,” she said. “We interact with each other every day, so all of the skills will help them communicate in almost every way on a daily basis.”