Public Speaking

Assignment 1: FINISHING THE SENTENCES

Here are a number of sentences that have a start and need your closing; “stem sentences” they are sometimes called. Please finish each so I will have better idea of how you think on these topics. If you don’t have any experience or memory on one or two of them, you don’t need to complete it. But of the ten, please complete at least eight.

If I were choosing to talk to a group of people and had to choose them on the basis of their age, I would choose people who are about _____ years old. And here’s the brief reason why. _____________________________________________________

The biggest challenge in speaking to a group of people who comes from many different ethnic backgrounds is ________________________________

When speaking to older people—folks in their seventies and eighties—you simply have to remember ____________________________________________.

If I had to choose between speaking to a group of people I already know versus a group in which I knew no one, I would definitely choose __________________________. And here’s why. ____________________________________________________

Unless people are required to attend a speech because they are students or work with a particular company that expects it, I would guess that most people go to hear a presentation because they __________________________________________________

If I were giving a speech and a large number of the audience were doing things on their cell phone, I would ___________________________________________________.

If I noticed a person in the audience looking puzzled while I was giving my speech, I would _______________________________________________________________

The more educated an audience is the more the speaker should ________________.

You can detect that you are going too long in a speech when people in the audience do these three or four things. __________________________________

When you know that many people in the audience are opposed to the position you are taking on your speech topic, you might ease the conflict early by doing a couple of things like (a)________________________________________ and (b)_______________.

Assignment 2: FOCUSING ON THE KEY TERMS

In this chapter on analyzing the audience, we are introduced to a group of terms that need to be under the magnifying glass—they are larger than they might actually appear on the page. Knowing the audience, what makes them tick, what values they hold, what assumptions they make, what knowledge they already have…those are the kinds of things that you just must know before you stand in front of them. And the good news? The more you know about them, the better you will be able to adapt your speech to fit them.

For each of the following terms, write a definition using either Lucas’s words, or better, your own words, and let them soak into your thinking. Someone has said, “Knowing your audience is as crucial as knowing your speech.” If that is even half true, you will want to soak up the insights found in these terms. Write as much or as little as you wish, but let this process stretch your knowledge about knowing your audience.

Audience-centeredness:

Identification:

Demographic Audience Analysis:

Stereotyping:

Situational Audience Analysis:

Disposition of the Audience toward the Speaker:

Assignment 3: GRASPING THE BIGGEST IDEA IN THE CHAPTER

If I as the instructor could only choose five terms from this book for you to know, one of them would be the term identification. The author also calls it common ground. My term for it is landing on the island of the audience’s experiences.” If I read the textbook right, it appears in all but one chapter of the text. It has to do with connecting with the audience, finding what you as the speaker and they as listeners have in common that might be a common starting point for your joint thinking.

Take this example. If you are speaking to a group of parents at the local PTA and you want to make sure that other parents connect with you and your ideas on how to work, say, with school uniforms, you might want to start your speech this way.

“I don’t know about you as parents, but at our house money is tight. If the school is going to implement school uniforms, at the very least we as parents have a right to know how much they will likely cost and how many we should buy in order to follow a normal cycle of clothing for our children. Am I right? Are you guys living on limited dollars too?”

That statement alone will no doubt cause many in the audience to say, “You are right. We have to know about the financial aspects of this decision.” That is finding common ground with your audience. I called it landing on the island of the audience’s experiences. I believe that the speaker has to actually go to where the audience is psychologically, to “go out to their world, their island” and speak the language of their island.

Here are four topics for you to work with. For each one, tell me what you might mention in the first few sentences of a presentation on this topic that would get an audience of twenty year olds to perk up and listen more closely to you. Put another way, what could you say to them that would create common ground with them? Your answers may run two or three sentences for each topic.

Eating Healthy

The Dangers of Facebook

The Keys to Smart Shopping

Embarrassing Moments

Assignment 4: SEEING IF YOU GRASPED THEM

See if you have grasped the key ideas of this chapter by giving one or two sentence responses to each of the following:

What topics could you mention in a classroom full of first graders that would likely get their attention right off the bat? Give at least three.

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

What would be the type of audience that you would actually hate to speak to? Describe them briefly and give a couple of reasons why they might be hard to communicate with.

If you were speaking to a group of people out of doors, what dynamics would be in place that would not be found in an indoor setting? Which setting, indoor or outdoor, do you think would be harder to speak in?

Being audience-centered is harder than it sounds. See if you can identify a few things that hinder it. If you are watching a person speak and you know that he she is simply not aware of the audience, how does that show? What behaviors does the speaker exhibit that show he or she is simply out of touch with the audience in front of them? List at least 2 behaviors which you might see that indicate this.

Assignment 5: TAKING A TRUE-FALSE QUIZ

See how well you do on this true-false quiz. It covers the basic ideas of the chapter and helps you clarify your sense of how to connect to an audience. Place a T (True) or F (False) in the blank at the front of each statement. You may use the chapter content to help you decide your answer.

_____ 1. The age of audience members is a key criterion when it comes to speaking on ideas and examples they will understand.

_____ 2. Finding out as much as you can about an audience in advance of your actual presentation to them is vital to your success.

_____ 3. According to the chapter, “demographics” is the study of the characteristics of an audience such as their age, educational level, socio-economic status, memberships, etc.

_____ 4. The less you know about an audience, the better, because you will not be as likely to offend them.

_____ 5. If an audience as a whole does not like the person speaking, it can actually affect the atmosphere of the room and cause the speaker to be less successful in his/her presentation.

_____ 6. Since we are all human beings, we hear ideas in much the same way and frankly resent someone trying to speak to us in our own setting and circumstances.

_____ 7. Respecting the cultural backgrounds of all people is more crucial than ever in our increasingly diverse society.

_____ 8. It does no greatly matter if an audience has a positive attitude toward the speaker. What is far more important is that the speaker get the details right.

_____ 9. Some people in an audience will like the speaker more than others. People have different feelings toward a speaker just because of what we often call “chemistry.”

_____ 10. A speaker should always dress professionally no matter what the occasion or audience.

_____ 11. It is probably best not to start with religion or politics if you are talking about a general topic like domestic abuse or safety in the home. It can cause members of the audience to turn you off before they even give you a hearing.

_____ 12. It would be less distracting to speak to a group of people indoors rather than outdoors. There are too many things to draw out attention away outdoors.

Assignment 6:

M6-D1

Do you remember that game we used to play called “Twenty Questions.” Someone would have in mind a thing that fit into one of three categories, animal, mineral or vegetable. They would only give us that clue. Then in twenty questions which could only be answered by a “yes” or “no” we tried to see if we could determine what thing they were thinking of. Took a little doing, but we usually got it. This chapter could easily be titled, “Twenty Questions to Ask About an Audience.” The more you and I as a presenter know about the people who sit in front of us, the better we will land in their world of experience and enjoyment. Knowing the audience makes you talk about things that connect with them, inspire them, excite them. Always try to zero in on who they are and what makes them tick and you will be the better speaker for it.

Most of us are on Facebook. But do you have your Facebook vest? Say what? Yes, your Facebook vest. Not kidding. Google it and then give me your impression on here. Don’t tell anybody, but this discussion is just for fun. What do you think of the vest and would you wear one?