Page 141 - Between One and Many The Art and Science of Public Speaking

108 Part 2 Between Audience and Speaker

Imagine that it is the 10th week in your term and you have heard approximately
60 speeches from your classroom colleagues. Topics have ranged from how a
Vegan diet can save native grasslands to the amount of energy people waste
while running the engines of their autos in the fast food drive-through. You’ve
also heard speeches about saving the rain forests, impact-free backpacking, and
the joys of using a bicycle to commute. Although you consider yourself a re-
sponsible citizen who cares about the environment, you now fi nd yourself listen-
ing to another speech on the topic, this time about the evils of SUVs. Having
grown up on a farm, you drive a full-size pickup, as does your dad. Because
you come from a large family, there’s also a Ford Excursion in the family motor
pool. And now this student speaking in front of the class is arguing that people
who drive these “fossil fueled monstrosities” are partly responsible for the war
in Iraq. Having heard enough, you fl ip open your cell phone and begin sending
text messages to your roommate about how bored you are and that you can’t
wait for the weekend.
Now put yourself in the speaker’s shoes. You’ve waited all semester long for
the opportunity to talk about your belief that our country’s entanglements in
the Middle East are partly a result of our wasteful consumption of fuels such
as oil and gas. Your sister is in Iraq right now; her reserve unit was called up
six months ago. You feel passionately about the need to reduce America’s ad-
diction to foreign oil, you’ve marshaled your facts, and you’ve rehearsed your
speech for days. Yet you now fi nd yourself losing your focus and fumbling over
your words because you can’t keep your eyes off this “yahoo” who is more inter-
ested in chatting it up on his cell phone than listening to what you have to say.
How rude!
Although this example is intentionally over the top, it illustrates a point we
make with our own students at the beginning of each semester. With roughly
25 students in a class, for every speech students give they will listen to 24. This
means they will spend about 96 percent of their time listening to other speakers
and only 4 percent actually giving speeches. Added to the time spent listening
to their teachers, we half joke that the class really ought to be called “Public
Listening.”
We know fi rst hand that it’s not always easy to listen to people, especially
when we think we have “heard it all before” on their subject. We also know,
however, what it’s like to try and share a message on a topic we are passionate
about, but appears boring or bothersome to some students.
Two points need to be made in this regard. First, listening is both impor-
tant to audience analysis and to the message you eventually shape for your
speech. When you make an effort to listen to your classmates you are not just
being courteous; you are learning about their attitudes, beliefs, and values. Sec-
ond, when you use this knowledge to shape your speech, you demonstrate for
audience members the fact that you respect them and the time they have generously
given you.
This chapter is designed to assist you in becoming a better public speaker and
audience member by fi rst becoming a better listener. We begin with the impor-
tance of listening and the nature of the process itself. We then focus on the com-
mon obstacles we need to overcome to improve listening. Finally, we introduce
a framework and set of specifi c skills that, when put into practice, will help us
become effective models of listening.