Read Chapter 13.3 in Business Communication for Success. Paradoxically, an audience-centred approach begins with active listening on the speaker’s part. This reading describes how to engage audiences with dynamic attention statements and activities that encourage active listening by making topics relevant to their interests, needs, and concerns. However, to do that you need to know your audience. In preparation, identify areas of common ground to help your audience connect with your message. Find out what they already know, so you can highlight the benefits of your new information, and frame your story in a relevant, well-organized way.
In presentation delivery, show interest in your topic, maintain focus on key ideas, vary your voice and movement, and integrate feedback strategies to help your audience stay engaged. For audiences, listening to a presentation demands focus. Beyond clear organization of ideas, audiences appreciate variety. People learn in a holistic way, through thinking, feeling, and action, as well as sensory modes of seeing and hearing. Using multimodal approaches in your presentation, such as integrating visual aids and experiential activities, will help to address diverse audience interests.
Finally, remember to include time for questions. Anticipating questions and formulating your responses in advance is a crucial part of speech preparation to ensure a strong presentation wrap-up. Preparing to suggest questions to the audience is another good way to engage lively discussion in your closing.
Recommended: After working through the learning activities, take a half-hour or so to review speeches you watched earlier that were given for live audiences. These include the talks by Loh, Venditti, Verghese, Hoeks, Watson, and Bourelle, as well as the speeches included in this topic. Try to identify the attention statements and active listening strategies the speakers used to engage audience interest and participation. What kind of attention statement is most appropriate for your own informative presentation? Which active listening strategies can you include in your presentation? What are a few visual aids that can support and reinforce your presentation?
Readings
Read Chapter 13.3 in Business Communication for Success. Paradoxically, an audience-centred approach begins with active listening on the speaker’s part. This reading describes how to engage audiences with dynamic attention statements and activities that encourage active listening by making topics relevant to their interests, needs, and concerns. However, to do that you need to know your audience. In preparation, identify areas of common ground to help your audience connect with your message. Find out what they already know, so you can highlight the benefits of your new information, and frame your story in a relevant, well-organized way.
In presentation delivery, show interest in your topic, maintain focus on key ideas, vary your voice and movement, and integrate feedback strategies to help your audience stay engaged. For audiences, listening to a presentation demands focus. Beyond clear organization of ideas, audiences appreciate variety. People learn in a holistic way, through thinking, feeling, and action, as well as sensory modes of seeing and hearing. Using multimodal approaches in your presentation, such as integrating visual aids and experiential activities, will help to address diverse audience interests.
Finally, remember to include time for questions. Anticipating questions and formulating your responses in advance is a crucial part of speech preparation to ensure a strong presentation wrap-up. Preparing to suggest questions to the audience is another good way to engage lively discussion in your closing.
Recommended: After working through the learning activities, take a half-hour or so to review speeches you watched earlier that were given for live audiences. These include the talks by Loh, Venditti, Verghese, Hoeks, Watson, and Bourelle, as well as the speeches included in this topic. Try to identify the attention statements and active listening strategies the speakers used to engage audience interest and participation. What kind of attention statement is most appropriate for your own informative presentation? Which active listening strategies can you include in your presentation? What are a few visual aids that can support and reinforce your presentation?
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