Page 389 - Between One and Many The Art and Science of Public Speaking

Speaking of . . .

Learning and Enjoyment
Jack Peters, Yosemite Tour Guide

Consider what Jack Peters, a Yosemite National Park tour guide has
to say about his experience as an informative presenter:
Like many people before me I wandered into Yosemite National
Park for a visit and ended up living and working there. My degree in
economics didn’t really prepare me to be a tour guide, so I started
from the bottom up in my training. First I listened to, and sometimes
copied, other people’s tours until I developed my own narrative style
and informational content. In my line of work, style and substance
often share equal importance as communication tools. If the guests
relate to you personally, that is how you present the material; they
will be more receptive to and retain more of the information you put
forward. The inevitable question at day’s end is “did you enjoy the
tour?” rather than “what did you learn?” Learning and enjoying do
not have to be mutually exclusive, as we all know.
The importance of communication should be self-evident. The
better we communicate, the more we understand about our world,
and ultimately, ourselves. So I just go up to that microphone and
let ’er rip!

Yosemite tour guide Jack Peters

Audience Appropriateness

Although novelty can increase the chances of an audience initially paying atten-
tion, the information we share also needs to be compatible with what audience
members believe is appropriate to the occasion. If our topic immediately turns
the audience off, the audience also will tune us out.
Early in this book we said that communication is perceptual and that the
process of perception is selective. Basically, people perceive what they choose
to perceive. Audience appropriateness is the audience’s perception that a
audience
appropriate message is consistent with their belief systems—their attitudes, beliefs, values,
and lifestyle. All too often, speakers fail to take appropriateness into account
Informative topic and
speech that takes into when choosing a topic and then constructing their informative speech.
account the occasion For example, we’ve heard several informative speeches on sexually transmit-
and audience members’ ted illnesses (STIs) and their prevention. We’ve also had students approach us
belief systems. after class and tell us they were offended or made to feel uncomfortable as a
consequence of (1) the information in some of these speeches, (2) their percep-
tion that these speeches promoted a lifestyle with which they disagreed, and
356 (3) the use of visual aids they didn’t perceive to be in good taste. To a large
degree, we were surprised by these reactions to a topic we believe needs to be