Oral Communication: The Shy & Introverted

Susan Cain presents a TEDTalk on The Power of Introverts. In this talk she addresses the ways which our culture values being social and outgoing especially in our education systems and work. Cain discusses how it may feel shameful or difficult under these conditions to be an introvert and highlights all the wonderful abilities introverts have to offer, and why introversion should be encouraged and celebrated. 

Cain, Susan. The power of introverts. 2012. URL: https://youtu.be/c0KYU2j0TM4

During my observation days at my placement I have noticed how fearful most of the students can be when it comes to public speaking. Their public speaking unit does not begin until next term, yet throughout the whole fall they refer to when they will have to do speeches and how nervous they are for them. It is interesting to me that they have been dwelling on a 3 minute speech that they will be presenting months away. This is mostly because of the idea that at some point in their year as eighth graders they know that everyone in the class will be looking at them as they stand in front of the room and present something that they have come up with themselves.

Last week I was able to see a sneak preview of how they will be when it comes to the public speaking unit that I will be preparing and executing in my teaching block. They were asked to take a short article from a Remembrance Day newspaper, read it to themselves, and come up with the main points and a 1 minute synthesis to tell the class what the article was about. Fear struck. It is safe to say the entire class bombed this activity. Even those students who were nailing the comprehension of the article were flopping in their oral communication because of the sheer terror of speaking in front of their peers. 

This is the greatest challenge that they will have to overcome when public speaking, and they may not overcome it. And the greatest challenge for me, as their teacher, will be preparing lessons in order to strengthen the confidence of the students and to relieve some of the stress the burden of oral communication puts on them. This can be done through activities and TEDTalks that support metacognition and reflecting on oral communication skills and strategies. We will identify what strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after listening and speaking and what steps they can take to improve their oral communication skills. (Ontario Language Curriculum, p. 140)

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/uschools

One of the ways I would like to promote metacognition of oral communication skills is through TEDTalks. TEDTalks that are based on topics such as public speaking, body language, fear, and introversion. This brings me back to the TEDTalk above by Susan Cain. Many of the students in my class may label themselves introverted or shy, which is why they feel so fearful when it comes to presenting their ideas to a class. Cain makes the distinction that, being shy is the fear of social judgment and introversion (and extroversion) is the way that we respond to social stimulation. In the most cases introversion and being shy go hand in hand. Cain labels herself as an introvert and towards the end makes the comment that even though she is honoured to speak to the audience in this platform, this is also not where she is most comfortable. She is a model of how even though the students may believe that they are under one label and comfortable in one area, oral communication is still a safe platform for the shy soft spoken person to relay their ideas. 

During her talk she states that some of our most transformative leaders were introverts such as Eleanor Rosevelt, Rosa Parks, Ghandi; all these people described themselves as quiet, soft spoken and even shy. They all took the spot light even though every bone in their bodies was telling them not to.I think this point may be one of the most important for students to know; that leaders such as these took the spotlight and directed not because they were comfortable or outgoing, but because their ideas led them to do so. I also believe that it is important for students to have the mindset that if you are shy and introverted you will not fail at public speaking. Yes, extroverts may thrive and feel comfortable communicating their ideas orally but introverts, who may not thrive in the same environment, still have the power to convey ideas effectively. In the examples Cain gives of these global leaders, and also in the example of her grandfather the Rabbi, students are able to see that that public speaking and outgoing-ness are not one in the same. 

TEDTalks, such as this one by Cain, can inspire self confidence and motivate students to practice public speaking, or as Cain calls it, "speaking dangerously". 

References:
Ministry of Education. The Ontario Curriculum Grades 1 -8: Language. 2006. Accessed: November 21, 2015. URL: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/language18currb.pdf

Susan Cain. The Power of Introverts. 2012. URL: https://youtu.be/c0KYU2j0TM4

Writing with an Audience in Mind

Writing provides students with the opportunity to learn about themselves and their connection to the world. When students are given numerous opportunities to write they are building the skills to organize their ideas and be effective communicators, the writing process allows them to clarify their thinking and express their thoughts and feelings. Through various writing assignments students are expected to create products of interesting, original, and independent critical thought, but what happens when we do not provide students with opportunities of various ways they can present their ideas?

According to the article Gradually Releasing Responsibility to Students Writing Persuasive Texts, there are three kinds of texts that students need to learn to write; argument, exposition, and narrative. The article also says, "Given that many teachers neglect the teaching of writing altogether, or focus more on narrative texts, this emphasis on the Common Core on writing means that students need more experience with writing argument or exposition." (p.4) As important as I believe creative writing to be and that students should be creating narratives, developing characters and crossing boundaries of what standard academic writing provides to them. I do also believe that there should be much more emphasis on argument and exposition; with these two types of texts students are better able to delve into the ideas that they feel passionate about and organize supportive information to be presented to an audience.

And this is where I would like to pose my question....

How do we teach students how to effectively communicate their ideas to an audience?

Yes, we know from the above article that we are able to use the IMSCI model for scaffolding writing instruction (more information on IMSCI model here). But what exactly are we modelling? What do we want our students to know about how to effectively prepare and communicate ideas through argument and exposition and how to present their products to an audience?

Nancy Duarte. Uncovering the Common Structure of Greatest Communicators. TEDxEast. November 11, 2010. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nYFpuc2Umk

Nancy Duarte, in the TEDxEast talk above, explains the model that she has developed for creating transformative presentations through analyzing speeches by Martin Luther King and Steve Jobs. 

Duarte in her talk states, "You have the power to change the world... Deep inside of you, every single one of you has the most powerful device known to man. And that's an idea." She continues to explain the process of how she came up with her model of transformative presentations but first she makes a riveting point by using hero archetypes in comparison. That is that we are not the heroes of our ideas, the audience are the heroes of our ideas, because we can have an idea but it needs to spread in order for it to be effective. She goes on to explain the role of the hero archetype; there is a likeable hero in an ordinary world and they get this call to adventure, which then their world is brought out of balance. At first they are resistant, and then a mentor comes along and helps them move from their ordinary world into a special world. And that is the role of the presenter, to be the mentor, so as writers we are presenting our idea to an audience and helping them move from one thing into our new, special idea, and that is the power of the story. 

Background Image: WarriorProse.com. November 24, 2010. URL: http://bit.ly/1lmtN55

Duarte explains the shape-structure of stories, and asks if a presentation had a shape what would it look like? And how do the greatest communicators use that shape if there is even a shape? Using Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech and Steve Jobs' 2007 iPhone Launch speech and overlaid the two on this structure and found that both fit. Duarte found that these speeches both started with establishing "What is" (the status quo, the commonplace), which needs to be compared with "What could be" (imagine a different future because of this special idea). And that gap between the two needs to be made as big as possible and highly contrasted. This shape goes back and forth, up and down between the what is and what could be until there is a call to action, a new bliss, which is presented in a poetic and dramatic way. 

Shape of story based on Duarte's structure of an effective presentation
(Chamberlain, 2015)

Duarte also uses this model to analyze the transcripts of both Martin Luther King's and Steve Jobs' speeches in depth to find what what types of techniques they have used in their speeches that had made them so effective. She finds that the presenters model for their audience what they want them to feel (ex. Isn't this wonderful?) and compelling them to feel a certain way. They turn to a personal story to keep the audience involved or anecdotes, they use a lot of metaphors people are familiar with and visual scenes with their words to take complicated ideas and make them memorable. And in the new bliss they use familiar quotes, or songs, or pieces from scripture that reach inside the hearts of the audience and what is important to them as a device to connect and resonate with the audience to paint this picture of a new bliss. 

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When we are thinking about teaching argument and exposition to our students we should not only be modelling how to properly write, but how to properly write with an audience in mind. Using some of the techniques in Duarte's model of what makes an effective presentation, we can properly teach students what they should be keeping in mind when conveying their idea to an audience and what is going to make that idea connect and resonate with them. Writing argument and exposition can be looked at as a presentation, students are presenting their ideas to the world and this basis Duarte has conveyed will help students to effectively communicate their ideas.


References:
Ministry of Education. The Ontario Curriculum Grades 1 -8: Language. 2006. Accessed: November 12, 2015. URL: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/language18currb.pdf

Nancy Duarte. Uncovering the Common Structure of Greatest Communicators. TEDxEast. November 11, 2010. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nYFpuc2Umk

Read, S., Landon-Hays, M. & Martin-Rivas, A. (2014). Gradually releasing responsibility to students writing persuasive text. The Reading Teacher, 67(6), 469-477. URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.proxy.library.brocku.ca/doi/10.1002/trtr.1239/abstract