Objective:
- To develop students communication skills.
- To encourage students to understand context when communicating.
- To encourage students to consider the real-world context for their subject area, and the skills they are developing.
Overview:
The ability to communicate your ideas clearly, confidently and effectively is essential in enterprise, and for any study and career a student may undertake. However, no to audiences are the same, and so, to be maximally impactful, no to pieces of communication should be the same either.
This simple activity can be run as a 5 minutes warm up or plenary to a session, or be expanded upon to fill a session in its own right. It works equally well with small or large groups, and requires no materials or preparation. It works well as a revision tool at the end of a lecture, topic, or module.
It encourages students to reflect on who their audience are whenever they're communicating, and to consider their language, tone, and points of reference to ensure that their message is understood as clearly as possible. It allows students to consider how their skills may be applied in a real world context, and to consider how their field connects with others.
Activity:
- Provide students with a piece of information which they are required to communicate. This could be something general (for example, what they do at University), or something relevant to the prevailing context and subject matter (for example, the plot of Hamlet, how a car engine works, or how the European Union was formed).
- Next, provide students with three hypothetical audiences which they must present this information to. The three audiences should be distinct from one another (for example, a 5 year old, a friend and a grandparent; a website developer, a graphic designer and a plumber; a British client, an American client and an Australian client).
- Instruct students that they should prepare a mini-presentation (30 seconds – 1 minute) to communicate their piece of information to each of these hypothetical audiences. They can do this alone or in small groups, and make any notes if desired.
- In completing this activity, the students are required to think about the language and reference points which will be familiar to each of their audiences, and how the key information can be communicated without anything becoming lost in translation.
- Students can then present their mini-presentations to the group for feedback and discussion.
The activity can easily be extended in a number of ways;
- The topic and / or audience can be kept a mystery from the audience, who have to guess what they are as the individual / group presents.
- The students can select three audiences themselves, reflecting on likely audiences for the information being communicated.
- The task can be used to consolidate key information students require, as a revision tool.
- The students can produce full presentations for their hypothetic audiences (for example, a web designer's sales pitch to a customer, or an economist’s evaluation of the economy to a public radio audience). These can be presented, recorded, or even tested in a real-world environment.
Skill Development:
Students will enhance their communication and public speaking skills, with a greater understanding of the importance of meeting the needs of your audience. They will have a greater appreciation of how their subject area connects with others, and of how their subject area operates within a real world context.
Resources:
- This activity forms part of the workshop outlined in How to Guide 'Workshop: How To Speak In Public'
References:
- BBC - The Speaker - Improve your public speaking. 2015. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/speaker/improve/ . [Accessed 28 July 2015].
- Corcoran, Mike. How to Speak in Public - YouTube. 2015. [ONLINE] Available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMnh02odBNA. [Accessed 29 July 2015].
- McCarthy, Patsy, 2002. Presentation Skills: The Essential Guide for Students (Study Skills). Edition. SAGE Publications Ltd (pp70-106 & 219-236).
- Shephard, Kerry, 2005. Presenting at Conferences, Seminars and Meetings. 1 Edition. SAGE Publications Ltd (pp1-18 & 138-148).
- Van Emden, Joan, 2010. Presentation Skills for Students (Palgrave Study Skills). 2 Edition. Palgrave Macmillan (pp1-61).
- Zone Enterprise Hub, Topic: ZONE Resources. 2015. [ONLINE] Available at: https://moodle.glyndwr.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=37§ion=11. [Accessed 28 July 2015].