MIT OpenCourseWare http ocw mit edu Resource The Torch or the Firehose Arthur Mattuck The following may not correspond to a particular course on MIT OpenCourseWare but has been provided by the author as an individual learning resource For information about citing these materials or our Terms of Use visit http ocw mit edu terms Basic Communication Skills Assuming your course is not in perfumes cooking or some refined academic version of these communication in your class will be by ears and eyes talking and listening writing and looking Let s begin with the last of these Eye contact Do you look at your students Think how hard it is to talk socially with someone who doesn t look at you Nothing will give your class the glass wall feeling faster than to see you talking to the blackboard the walls the window or a point one foot over their heads If this is you pick two or three students who don t sit next to each other and address your remarks primarily to them then gradually branch out to the others Or if you bring notes to class include in them at several points notes to yourself Look at the students while doing this Look over students shoulders as they work at their seats all these help in breaking through that no look force shield surrounding your students Eye contact will also automatically improve as you get to know your students better as individuals say through office hours or by coming early to class Even shy people are usually able to look at their friends when they talk to them Listening To communicate you have to be a good listener Many people aren t especially teachers who are a little nervous about their command of the material or preoccupied with covering something or getting some specific points across Listening to students presents a particularly troublesome problem since sometimes they are very poor speakers who don t say what they mean to say Remember the discussion in the chapter on Questions try responding to a question with a question of your own until you feel sure you know and the others know what s being asked If in doubt enlist the aid of others students in the interpretation Q I couldn t get problem 22 on page 263 could you work it A Did you have trouble getting started or did you get stuck somewhere in the middle Or was it that you didn t get the answer in the back of the book Q Is the gyroscope important A 30 Important in physics or the real world or for the exam next Wednesday Your voice People don t think much about how they sound as speakers yet the way you say things sends strong messages to your class and to a great extent determines its overall atmosphere Put a cassette recorder on the desk and let it run for the class hour Many teachers are shocked by the playback and don t believe what they hear Listen to the inflection of your voice Common problems are Dying fall voice drops into inaudibility at the end of each sentence Depressing Rising inflection every sentence becomes a question Seems like you hear it everywhere these days Irritating Monotone voice on one level without emphasis Soporific Listen to the pace of your voice a rapid fire delivery that just can t be followed is all too familiar and a slow pace has problems also Does Prof R realize it s very hard to take notes after he puts us to sleep The TA was very um knowledgeable um but um pedantic and um slow Some other common speaking problems Sentences interlarded incessantly with OK All right with no pause for response and none expected Voices with an emotional overlay voices that sigh frequently with apparent boredom or seem to express underlying anger or irritation usually the teacher is unaware of any of these feelings Again listen to a tape to hear if any of this is what you do If you ve got a well modulated well paced voice which expresses a cheerful enthusiasm congratulations your class has lucked out If not you will be able to change most of the things above once you learn to hear them in your voice by listening to an audio tape Unfortunately two are very resistant monotone speech and too rapid speech But the latter can be helped if you learn to use the blackboard well We ve left out foreign accents see the chapter for teachers from other countries 31 Sarcasm and other things to avoid Words like obvious or trivial and phrases like I think you should all be able to see that will seem like put downs to your students and inhibit response they just are very unsettling if one feels insecure with the material Think how much courage it takes to respond Well it may be obvious but I still don t see how you got that Don t put unnecessary roadblocks in their way Sarcasm can be put in the same category A teacher who has excellent rapport with the class can get away with such minor and apparently harmless sarcasm as You re all geniuses so I know I won t have to explain this to you but it s too risky for the average class situation it just isn t a joke to students who feel insecure The visual side of teaching This means what you write on the blackboard or show on Power Point overheads or class handouts Some teachers pay little attention to this but they are making a mistake People vary in the way they like to take in information you need to pay as much attention to the eye minded as the ear minded If you both speak well and write well it gives you two chances to reach everyone The visual side is so important and so neglected we re going to discuss it in a separate chapter 32