It is not only what you say in the classroom that is important, but it's how you say it that can make the difference to students. Nonverbal messages are an essential component of communication in the teaching process.
Teachers should be aware of nonverbal behavior in the classroom for three major reasons:
An awareness of nonverbal behavior will allow you to become better receivers of students' messages.
You will become a better sender of signals that reinforce learning.
This mode of communication increases the degree of the perceived psychological closeness between teacher and student.
Some major areas of nonverbal behaviors to explore are:
Eye contact
Facial expressions
Gestures
Posture and body orientation
Proximity
Paralinguistics
Humor
Eye contact:
Eye contact, an important channel of interpersonal communication, helps regulate the flow of communication. And it signals interest in others. Furthermore, eye contact with audiences increases the speaker's credibility. Teachers who make eye contact open the flow of communication and convey interest, concern, warmth and credibility.
Facial expressions:
Smiling is a powerful cue that transmits:
Happiness
Friendliness
Warmth
Liking
Affiliation
Thus, if you smile frequently you will be perceived as more likable, friendly, warm and approachable. Smiling is often contagious and students will react favorably and learn more.
Gestures:
If you fail to gesture while speaking, you may be perceived as boring, stiff and unanimated. A lively and animated teaching style captures students' attention, makes the material more interesting, facilitates learning and provides a bit of entertainment. Head nods, a form of gestures, communicate positive reinforcement to students and indicate that you are listening.
Posture and body orientation:
You communicate numerous messages by the way you walk, talk, stand and sit. Standing erect, but not rigid, and leaning slightly forward communicates to students that you are approachable, receptive and friendly. Furthermore, interpersonal closeness results when you and your students face each other. Speaking with your back turned or looking at the floor or ceiling should be avoided; it communicates disinterest to your class.
Proximity:
Cultural norms dictate a comfortable distance for interaction with students. You should look for signals of discomfort caused by invading students' space. Some of these are:
Rocking
Leg swinging
Tapping
Gaze aversion
Typically, in large college classes space invasion is not a problem. In fact, there is usually too much distance. To counteract this, move around the classroom to increase interaction with your students. Increasing proximity enables you to make better eye contact and increases the opportunities for students to speak.
Paralinguistics:
This facet of nonverbal communication includes such vocal elements as:
Tone
Pitch
Rhythm
Timbre
Loudness
Inflection
For maximum teaching effectiveness, learn to vary these six elements of your voice. One of the major criticisms is of instructors who speak in a monotone. Listeners perceive these instructors as boring and dull. Students report that they learn less and lose interest more quickly when listening to teachers who have not learned to modulate their voices.
Humor:
Humor is often overlooked as a teaching tool, and it is too often not encouraged in college classrooms. Laughter releases stress and tension for both instructor and student. You should develop the ability to laugh at yourself and encourage students to do the same. It fosters a friendly classroom environment that facilitates learning. (Lou Holtz wrote that when his players felt successful he always observed the presence of good humor in the locker room.)
Obviously, adequate knowledge of the subject matter is crucial to your success; however, it's not the only crucial element. Creating a climate that facilitates learning and retention demands good nonverbal and verbal skills. To improve your nonverbal skills, record your speaking on video tape. Then ask a colleague in communications to suggest refinements.
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DR:
May I change the topic of public speaking to another topic ?
How are you ?
Yesterdad I can go into your blog but today cannot
Ans. to Chap. 1
1. Attempts to convince.
6. An argument is an attempt to convince someone ( possibly yourself) that a particular claim, called the conclusion, is true.
7. The point of an argument is to convince that a claim - the conclusion - is true.
8(a). A premise is a collection of claims which is given as the reason for believing the conclusion is true.
8(b). A conclusion is sometimes called the issue that is being debated.It is the claim that someone is attempting to establish is true.
9. Commands, threats and entreaties are not arguments.
For example, Close the window. ( There is no conclusion.)
From(PEP 070025)
Ans. to Chap. 1
3. We can convince others. Others try to convince us. We can convince ourselves.
4a. Yes.
4e. No. (A command)
4i. Yes.
4k. Yes.
12. Arguments use language. If she has talked something to herself then she is making an argument.
16. No. (No conclusion is stated.)
20. No. (No conclusion is stated.)
From PEP 070025
Chap. 2 Sec.B
1a. A claim is subjective if whether it is true or false depends on what someone ( or something or some group ) thinks, believes, or feels. A subjective claim invokes personal standards.
1b. A claim is objective if it is not subjective. An objective claim invokes impersonal standards.
1c. No.
4. Because we don't have very precise ways to describe our feelings.
6a. Objective claim.
6b. Subjective claim.
6d. Subjective claim.
6i. Subjective claim.
6j. Objective claim.
Sec. C
1. A claim is prescriptive if it says what should be.
3. Descriptive. Standard needed ? No.
4. Prescriptive. Standard needed? Yes.
11. Descriptive. Standard needed? No, it's just a subjective value judgement. Unless the clerk happens to be an art history major who knows about art.
12. Not clear until a standard is given. Standard needed? Yes. Is this meant as objective, and that you should like Picasso better than Rembrandt? Or is it meant as just a subjective value judgement?
Sec. D.
1f. Not a definition.
4. A good definition satisfies both the words doing the defining are clear and better understood than the word or phrase being defined, and the words being defined and the defining phrase can be used interchangeabiy. That is , it's correct to use the one exactly when it's correct to use the other.
Additional Exs.
9a. Suzy can't understand what "argument" means.
9b. Suzy can't understand "the argument" Dr.E gave in class.
9c. The judge let him get away with "murder".
From PEP070025
Chap.3 Sec.A-C
1. An argument is an attempt to convince someone (possibly yourself) that a particular claim, called the conclusion, is true.
2. An argument is valid if there is no possible way for its premises to be true and its conclusion false (at the same time).
3. An argument is strong if there is some way, some possibility, for its premises to be true and its conclusion false (at the same time), but every such possibility is extremely unlikely.
4. No, because the premise could be implausible.
7. A bad argument tells us nothing about whether the conclusion is true or false.
9. The three tests are:
(i)The premises are plausible.
(ii) The premises are more plausible than the conclusion.
(iii) The argument is valid or strong.
10. Because each can fail while the other two hold.
16. No. Invalid arguments are classified from strong to weak.
17. Bad argument. (Not necessarily weak-it could be valid.)
22. d.
24. c.
Exs. for Chap.3
1. Nothing.
10. Valid and good.
12. Weak, bad. Spot could be any animal.
23. Weak. Professor Zzzyzzx may have changed his grading.
From PEP 070025
Chap.4 Sec A-D
10a. (i)P (ii)P (iii)P (iv)C
10e. (i)P (ii)P (iii)C
10h. (i)P (ii)P (iii)C
7(i) When there is no argument there.
7(ii) When the conclusion is clearly false.
7(iii) When a premise it uses is false or dubious and cannot be deleted.
8. Nothing.
11. Deleting it doesn't make the argument weaker, and no obvious way to link it to the conclusion.
12. Yes.
Conclusion: Dr.E is a man.
Premises: Dr.E is a teacher. All teachers are men.
Valid, bad, unrepairable: The second premise is false.
13. " Anything that walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, is a duck."
20. "Ralph barks." Good argument if this is plausible.
28. Not an argument. If you try to interpret it as an argument, it's hopelessly bad, and that should convince you not to think of it as an argument.
Sec.E.
1a. The man she's talking to is a fat man to her.
1b. She thinks I'm fat.
6. She was driving within a couple miles from her home- even though she had macular degeneration, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's ! That should scare me a lot !
From PEP070025
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