Adapting Verbally And Visually

Adapting Verbally And Visually Presented by Mohammad Hussain & Komal Zehra

Audience Adaptation Audience Adaptation

is the Active process of verbally and visually relating material directly to the specific audience. You will recall that an affective speech plan is a product of five action Steps:

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Developing Common ground Building and maintaining audience interest Relating to the audience’s level of understanding Reinforcing or changing audience’s attitudes towards you and your topic • Relating information visually -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Developing Common Ground Common Ground

- Awareness that the speaker and

the audience share the same or similar information,feelings, and experiences. -------

Use Personal Pronouns Pronouns referring directly to the one speaking, spoken to, or spoken about

Ask Rhetorical Questions Questions phrased to simulate a mental response rather than a spoken response

Share Common Experience Share your common Experience by selecting and presenting personal experiences

Personalize Information Relating information to specific audience references

Creating and Maintaining Audience Interest L

istener’s interest depends on whether they believe the information has personal impact ----

Below are four Principle you can use to build and maintain Audience interest

Timeliness Listeners are more likely to be interested in information they perceive as timely they want to know how they can use that information now

Proximity Information with a relationship to personal space

Seriousness Information having Physical, economic or Physiological impact

Vividness Information that arouses our sense

Adapting to the audience’s level of Understanding

If you Predict that your listeners do not have the necessary background to understand the information that you will present in your speech, you will need to orient them. If, however, you predict that your audience has sufficient background, you will need to present information in a way that will ensure continuous Orienting Listeners understanding e likely to stop paying attention if they are lost at the start of th

Presenting New Information Even when we predict that our audience has the necessary background information, we still need to work on ways of presenting new information that ensures continued understanding.

Building a Positive Attitude toward you as the Speaker Credibility -

The level of trust an audience has or will have in the speaker There are three steps that are defined to build a positive attitude towards you as the speaker ----

Building Audience Perception of Your Knowledge and Expertise Building Audience Perception of Your Trustworthiness Building Audience Perception of Your Personality ----

Building Audience Perception of your Knowledge and Expertise Your Audience will expect you to have a wealth of highquality examples, illustrations, and personal experiences in your speech ---• The first step in building a perception of knowledge and expertise is to go into the speaking situation fully prepared • Next step is to show your audience that you have a wealth of high-quality examples, illustrations, and personal experiences. • Third step is to show any direct involvement you have had with the topic area. In addition to increasing the audience’s perception of your depth of knowledge, your personal involvement increase the audience perception of your practical understanding of the issue and your personal concern for the subject

Building Audience Perception of Your Trustworthiness Trustworthiness Speaker’s character and apparent motivates for speaking ----

• Early in your speech, it is important to show why listeners need to know your information • Throughout the speech, you can emphasize your sincere interest in their well-being. • The more listeners see you as one of them, the easier it will be for you to establish your trust worthiness

Building Audience Perception of your Personality • Audience perception of your personality are likely to be based on their first impression of you • Try to dress appropriately, groom yourself carefully, and carry yourself in an attractive manner. • Audience react favorably to a speaker who acts friendly. • A smile and a pleasant tone of voice go a long way in showing warmth that will increase listeners’ comfort with you and your ideas.

Adapting to the Audience’s attitude towards your speech goal AttitudeA predisposition for or against people, places or things that usually expressed as an opinion ----

Adapting to listeners, attitudes towards your speech goal is especially important for persuasive speeches, but it can be important for informative speeches as well. At the outset, try to predict whether listeners will view your topic positively, negatively, or have no opinions.

Adapting to Audiences Visually Visual Aids A form of speech development that enables the audience to see as well as to hear information (i)__Visual Aids you can carry Many times your speech can be helped by using a visual aid you can carry to class

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Yourself Objects Models Photographs Films Slides

Yourself On Occasion, you can be your own best visual aid. For instance, through descriptive gestures you can show the height of tennis net; through your postures and movement you can show the motions involved in the butterfly swimming stroke; and through your own attire you can illustrate the native dress of foreign country

Objects A cell phone, a basketball, or a braided rug are the kind of objects you can bring that can be seen by the audience. Objects make good visual aids if 1- They are large enough to be seen (consider how far away people will be sitting) 2- Small enough to carry around with you.

Models When an object is too large to bring to the speech site or too small to be seen, a threedimensional model may prove a worth while substitute. If you were to talk about turbine engine, a suspension bridge, an Egyptian Pyramid, or the structure of an atom, a model might well be the best visual aid. Working models can be especially eyecracking.

Photographs Photos are useful visual aids when you need an exact reproduction. To be effective, they need to be large enough to be seen from the back of the room and effective enough to make your point at glance

Films Although Films can be brought to class, they are seldom appropriate for speeches-mostly because films so dominate that the speaker loses control. Occasionally during a longer speeches you may want to use short clips of a minute or two each. Still, because projecting film requires darkening the room for that portion of time, using a film in a speeches is often disruptive. Moreover, to use films you must bring a projector to class with you.

Slides The advantage of slides over films is that you can control when each image will be shown. The remote-control device enables you to pace your slides and talk about each one as long as necessary. As with films, slides requires darkening the room when they are projected, and novice speakers may lose control of their audience. And as with films, you must bring a projector to class with you

(ii)__Visual Aids you can create The next group of visual aids require more work for you because you have to create them

• Drawings • Maps • Charts - Word Charts - Organizational Charts • Graphs - Bar graph - Line graph - Pie graphs

Drawing Simple drawings are easy to prepare. If you can use a compass, a straightedge, and a measure, you can draw well enough for most speech purposes. Stick figures may not be aesthetically pleasing as professional drawings, but they work just as well. In fact, elaborate, detailed drawings are not worth the time and effort they actually may obscure the point you wish to make.

Maps Like drawings, maps are relatively easy to prepare. Simple maps enables you to focus on landmarks (mountains, rivers, and lakes), states, cities, land routes, or weather system

Charts A chart is a graphic representation that distills a lot of information and present it to an audience is easily interpreted format. Word charts and Organizational charts are most common examples and used commonly Word Charts Word charts are often used to preview materials that will be covered in a speech, to summarize materials, and to remind an audience of speech content. Organizational Charts diagram of a complicated system or procedure using symbol and connecting lines

Graph A graph is a diagram that compares information Below are three common types of Graphs

• Bar graphs Diagram that compares information with vertical or horizontal bars to show relationship between two or more variables at the same time or at various times on one or more dimension

• Line graphs A diagram that indicates changes in one or more variable over time

• Pie graphs A diagram that shows relationship among parts of a single unit

A Plan of Adaptation Writing a Speech Plan

It is a written strategy for establishing common ground, maintaining interest, ensuring understanding, and copying with potential negative reactions to you as a speaker or to your topic or goal. Even though your classroom audience may be similar to you in age, race, religion, academic background, and so forth, you must still think through your strategies carefully.

Summary Speakers adapt to their audiences by speaking directly to them by planning strategies that create or build audience interest, adapt to audience level of understanding, and adapt to the audience’s attitude towards the speaker and towards the goal ---

For your first few Speeches, it may help to write out a speech plan that specifies how you will adapt your speeches to the specific audience