Blog #2

The first situation I thought of that can relate to this is not specifically a speaker, but a professor here at River Falls. To begin with, I work for TV Services here on campus. In the Agricultural Science Hall there is a Distance Learning classroom, and part of our job description at TV Services is to facilitate whichever day or night class one of us has been assigned to. Basically, I make sure all of the equipment in the room is working correctly. One semester, I was assigned to a Teacher Education class that met on Tuesday nights. I won’t deny the fact that I was pretty excited; what guy wouldn’t be excited to be in a room consisting of only him and thirty girls? With that being said, everything was good. At least, everything was good until the professor came in the room. Along with teaching on campus, this professor also teaches at a local elementary school. Her classroom at the elementary school consists of kindergarten through third grade.
Now I understand this class is meant to teach college students the ways of elementary education, but she interacted with them like she would with the little kids in her elementary classes. I can honestly say I have never seen this many college students and adults be treated like a group of four and five year olds. Don’t get me wrong, she is an extremely nice professor, but I just do not agree with her teaching style being so similar to how she would teach her elementary class. After witnessing this, I know that something I would do when speaking to an audience would be to NOT talk to them as if they were children. I would treat them with the respect they deserve as the adults they are.
Now throughout my academic career, I have seen and listened to numerous presentations; I’m pretty sure that will not be ending any time soon. From the presentations sat through, I can easily say that one type of verbal support that captures my interest is when the speaker uses descriptive words. If I do not know what the speaker is talking about, then I am not going to be very interested. By using descriptive words and taking the time to describe the little details in their topic, I can better understand where they are coming from and actually get into it. A type of speaker that can bore really fast is when they do not have any enthusiasm. If the speaker, the one who is trying to inform, persuade, or entertain me with a specific topic, is bored and disinterested, odds are I am going to become bored and disinterested. However, if the speaker is excited about what he is talking about, I will at least be more prone to pay attention in order to find out what is so great.
Along with the speaker being excited about the topic and giving plenty of details, the best verbal support that helps me understand the topic involves easy analogies and similarities. It definitely helps when the speaker compares the topic to other aspects of life. However, when the speaker is too wordy and speaks with long sentences, I find it a little confusing to follow along. Yes, I like details, but I also like a more simple speech rather than one filled with ‘big, eloquent words.’ Unlike a speech that contains a ridiculous amount of complex words, ones that hold rhetorical questions or just questions in general definitely leave a lasting impact on me. I love being left with a question that I can ponder for myself rather than just being given the answer all the time.
Since every speech that I hear will not leave a lasting impression on me, the presentations that I am most likely to forget easily are the ones that end abruptly. In short, the conclusion is very important. When it comes to knowing whether or not the source in a speech is credible or not just by listening is a little troublesome. You can’t really know for sure if the source reliable or not when you just hear it from the speaker. However, I would say that sometimes common sense can help with deciding if something is of good quality or not. Other than that, the only other way I can think of at the moment is judging if the speaker shares the information and source confidently or not.
After reflecting on these different verbal supports, I will focus on always keeping what the audience would like to hear in mind as I prepare a speech. In the end, if the audience is disinterested in the speech, you are pretty much just talking to a wall.