I have had the opportunity to listen to many influential speakers, in person or through the media. However, a guest speaker I listened to last October communicated in a way I had not heard before. I was taking a course in special education and our professor invited Richard to speak, he was a high school teacher who was deaf. He had two interpreters to assist him as he used sign language to convey his ideas. What struck me was the passion with which he gave his lecture. He was well prepared with creative power points and clearly articulated what people with disabilities are capable of. Richard had a certain presence and enthusiasm as he communicated, that kept everyone’s attention on him. Every now and then he injected some humor and got the audience involved. Through his lecture, I learned that we can become effective communicators if we follow some rules like, keeping it simple, visual, interesting with the right touch of humor, look at the audience, be creative when introducing a topic and move with gestures. He showed us that we are all capable of doing things if we are passionate about it.
One of the worst speakers I heard was someone who just read from her notes for twenty minutes standing in the same spot, in a fast-paced, monotonous voice. She never looked at the audience and judging from the tone of her voice, she was clearly nervous. She had no visuals or humor to share. As a result, some of the audience just chatted amongst themselves, while others began to doze off.
Sunshine, your story about your favorite speaker was truly inspiring. I loved how you said that we can learn from communication and that we need to follow rules like keeping it simple, visual, interesting with the right touch of humour. I couldn’t agree more, there have been so many times when I have been in the audience and I have just needed that extra push so that I didn’t fall asleep or completely loose interest. If the speaker is passionate about what they are speaking about it can change the feel of the audience so much. I think that is amazing that even though the man was deaf he was still a successful professor and had made the most out of his situation.
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