What Makes an Effective Audience for RCM 401?

Bitzer states that a rhetorical audience must be “mediators of change”. Along with this, RCM 401 audiences must have other qualities so as to allow and encourage their fellow peers to learn.

These qualities include:

• Ability to critically listen, while being able to interpret the message from more angles than just yours.
• Willingness to become outspoken during both the question and feedback periods.
• Keep mind open to all topics so as to see the internal structure of the message i.e. Exigence, action, audience relations.
• Ability to create notes on all aspects of the speech while still listening and watching for delivery quirks that can be worked out.

Audience Influence on the Speaker

Although audiences are not vocally communicating with the speaker, all rhetorical speaking requires active participation by the audience. Body language of the audience can have a large impact on how the speaker delivers their message. Body language can show a speaker how you are feeling about their message, delivery, and audience consideration. Although it is important that the speaker sees these emotions and cues, but remember in excess they can become distracting.

The article “Listening: The ‘Lost’ Communication Skill” outlines sets of behaviours to avoid and sets of behaviours to engages in. These are listed below.

Avoid:

1. Stare
2. Yawn
3. Looking away
4. Nervous habits, fidgeting
5. Shaking head negatively
6. Moving away from speaker
7. Negative facial expression, such as frowning or pouting
8. Crossed arms

Engage In:

1. Direct eye contact
2. Smiling
3. Nodding
4. Eyes wide open
5. Forward lean
6. Positive facial expression

Not only can your body language change the way the speech is delivered but can affect how all your feedback is received. Mark Bowden speaks in his Ted Talk about how important body language is in establishing a relationship and therefore the effective reception of a message:

Critically listening as an audience member

Listening critically as defined by Trudy Mercadal-Sabbagh and Michael Purdy “is used to evaluate a message before accepting or rejecting it”. Effective listening can sometimes be difficult and barriers can be formed from many places including the environment and the message itself.

Common barriers formed by the audience:

• Physiological (within ourselves, ex: personal opinions)
• Within the communication (ex: language barrier)
• Within the environment (distractions, ex: noise)
• Learned from social or cultural associations and influences (ex: reactions to stereotypical labels, ethnocentric rituals)

Awareness of the above barriers and effort by the audience to alleviate them allows for proper critical listening.

What to Look for in the Speech

“Listening: The ‘Lost’ Communication Skill” states that an audience must decide what to listen for; Appreciation, Information, Understanding and or critical evaluation of information, Evidence and arguments, mode of presentation, situation. As current RCM 401 students we have developed to become more selective and aware of things taken place during a presentation. When participating as an audience member we must look for delivery styles, but also be aware of the argument. Looking beyond the delivery to the structure and balance within a speech is key to understanding what factors make a message effectively delivered. In RCM 401 speeches, we need to be especially concerned with understanding and critical evaluation of information as well as evidence arguments, and mode of presentation

Mode of Presentation– Concerned with the delivery of the message. Delivery is more than just vocal presentation, but is also concerned with actions of the body. Watch for hand gestures, facial expression, body movements, vocal volume, speech tags, teeth smacking, and other body language that occur.

Evidence and Arguments- The actual information supplied in the message. This includes the topic and the justification supplied by the speaker. Things to watch out for are fluency, logic, captivation, and absorption of arguments. Evidence must come from multiple sources and balanced between the modes of appeal.

Understanding and Critical Evaluation– Critical evaluation should be assessed throughout the speech, and finalized at the end of the presentation when you can consider all components. Placement of presentation elements is a key area to focus on when finalizing your evaluation, order can be the difference between an element being effective or ineffective.

Note Taking

Note taking is a large part of RCM 401 not only because it allows you to give feedback on whether or not a speaker is improving but also because you will need to structure an analysis on how a speaker progressed throughout the course. For each individual speech taking effective notes allows you to organize your thoughts and remember all parts of the speech. Notes should be concise and straight to the point ensuring that your time is devoted in a balanced manner between notes and the speaker. Notes should cover the topic, action, argument points, delivery, strengths, weaknesses, and the modes of appeal used.

This video supplies multiple strategies for note taking, emphasizing ways to effectively use your piece of paper:

Article and Video: Note taking strategies

If you have a note taking strategy that you have already developed to work for you it is best to stay with that, just ensure you cover the areas outlined above.

Constructive Feedback and its Delivery

Constructive feedback is a major part of the RCM 401 class. Without feedback speakers will not know where they have excelled or lacked. This process is key to the development of you and your classmates so it is important that the feedback is taken positively and not ignored due to mistakes in the way it is delivered. Feedback can be one of the most challenging things we must do in this course.

The following article explains how to balance your feedback to ensure it is constructive rather than overly critical or praising.

Constructive Feedback ‘For Dummies’

This video give 5 tips for the effective delivery of constructive feedback:

Video: How to give constructive feedback