Who is a good speaker?
Homework
for your blog:
Find a
speech on Youtube which you can link to your blog.
Analyse the
speech under the following headings:
-Clarity of
delivery
-Message
-Command of
pitch
-Tone and articulation
-Eye contact
Write about:
1.Do you think it was a good or bad presentation/speech?
2.Why do you think it is good or bad?
3.What points made were most effective in this presentation/speech?
4.How would you describe the body language of this presenter?
5.Do you think the slides used on the screen were effective if there were any úsed?How?
6.Were the statistics/facts in this presentation easily understandable?
7..How do you think the presenter prepared the presentation to make it relevant to that audience?
8.Were there props in this presentation?
9.Was there any point where you were lost in the presentation?If so why do you think this was?
10.Do you think the presenter achieved their aim with the presentation/speech?
Active Listening
As a potential employee in a business, being able to demonstrate that you can actively listen could be the difference in getting you hired or not. Why? An employer will want to see that you can interact well with customers as well as being able to work as a team and demonstrate a capability for being able to handle conflict resolution. To do any of these requires a degree of active listening.
When somebody is saying something to you, are you actually listening to what they are saying? Or are
you preoccupied with what you were going to say next? When you are a customer and ringing up
particular companies, do you feel listened to? Have you had to deal with automated phone answering
machines before you get through to a customer service representative? Are you dealing with a
customer representative in Ireland? Do you feel listened to more or less as a result? Is the customer
service representative more interested in listening to you or making a sale.
Active listening is a method of listening and responding appropriately to somebody else. It is where the focus of attention is on the speaker.
Customer service representatives are under enormous pressure from supervisors and management to
deal with customers within a certain time limit to meet company targets. The downside to this is
if customers don't feel listened to, they may simply never call again and switch their business. So in a
nutshell, your manner on the phone has the ability to make or lose money for the company you work for.
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| Active listening is an important skill to have, particuarly in The Samaritans |
Do you listen in class to your teachers?
Ever drift off? Get distracted?
Secretly texting under the desk or looking at Facebook when you
shouldn't be? Why? Is it because you were bored?
Do you find it easier to learn visually?
Would Powerpoint presentations help keep your interest?
Was the teachers delivery not interesting enough for you?
Did the teacher interact with the class or simply lecture?
Was the delivery of the topic too complicated or too simple?
Do you have difficulty recognising the real world benefit of the topic?
Did you have something else on your mind?
What happens you when this happens?
Do you ever regret not listening to your teacher?
How can you listen better?
What has that exercise got to do with the real world? Maybe the customer you are dealing with or their query is boring?
Maybe you are tired at work from going out the night before?
Maybe it's a busy day at work?
Maybe you are thinking about something else?
The distractions in your classroom can be similar to the ones you face at work.
Here is a tongue in cheek clip taken from the Channel 4 show, The I.T, crowd. Most of us have had to
ring up at some stage about computer problems.
How do you think active listening wasn't used in these examples?
Youtube Video The IT crowd - Truest moment about tech support
Uploaded by johnnyricoMC on 21 May 2010
How could the customer service representative in this roleplay have used better active listening skills?
Youtube Video
Call Handling Skills
Here is a video about what people randomly selected off the street think of customer service in
Ireland.
Youtube Video How Good is Customer Service In Ireland?
