What is the best way to hold your audience attention?
Halfway through sometimes you loose your audience and its a little frustrating especially when you think your doing great. What do you do?
I find that using some direct questioning works well. It will engage the ones that need it. I also like to give a break when this happens as it will give them a chance to get up and move around. Sometimes I will even tell a "real life" story that is related to the topic as a way for them to see the relevance of the topic.
These are all great ideas & tactics. Another idea is to see if one of the audience members have a personal story that relates. Now, this needs to be handled very carefully as this can get away from you, but still a possibility.
Ryan
You're right this can be very frustrating. This is a good time to throw a discussion question out to the group that they can discuss in pairs or small groups. Have them get up & move around to discuss. It's not a guarantee but often this can help reengage them. While they're doing that see if you can figure out where you may have lost them.
Ryan
Tell a story that relates directly to the subject matter...everyone loves stories, and they engage the students by igniting dramatic tension...the natural curiosity to find out...what happened?
Change of state. Have the audience stand up or switch seats if you can relate it to the material being discussed. Alot of time I will ask for someone to voluntold to perform a task or be an example.
people do enjoy real life stories even you describe mistakes you have made it lets them know you are human also.
I try to either talk about a real life experience relating to the subject or asking direct questions to my audience. I also, depending on the presentation audience, will do a mini-change of state by using some humor to get the audience re-engaged with me.
Yes, story telling is becoming a lost art & can be so valuable. Just remember, as you said, that the story needs to relate to your topic.
Ryan
These are all great strategies to engage or re-engage the audience. Never an easy task, but vitally important.
Ryan
So true. I have found that when I am honest & admit those mistakes, often this is one of the best entries into learning for my students.
Ryan
Yes, that audience participation is a great idea. Anything that can break that wall or barrier between speaker & audience.
Ryan
I will think of a way to create a question or problem and involve the audience in resolving it. This seems to give the audience a feeling of participation and belonging. Feeling like they are part of the solution will reignite their interest and stimulate their thought and awareness.
I have found that in order to hold the attention, it is important to walk around the room. Get close to the audience and then they are more willing to get involved. Also, during any of my presentations I will talk a little and then ask if the audience agrees or disagrees? That way they can be involved, but they know that it isn't the Q & A time specifically.
Terry
Purposely get off topic. Tell a joke or something. No matter how intersting of engaging the subject, the average attention span of an adult is about 10 minutes. The speakers job is to break up the monotany by changing the tone, subject, or what ever to keep the audience engaged.
Several things that I incorporate in (college)Library Orientations are: asking questions that involve a show of hands (since this involves everyone to think); incorporate a hands-on group activity that demands involvement from everyone; move around 'showing and telling' about things I really want to get across and for the students to remember; and to comment on their attentiveness, good questions that they ask of me, and good answers to my questions; and always tell a humorous little antecdote or interesting fact. You must be creative and change things up to keep the students full attention!
All of these are great ideas & key idea regarding being creative & changing things up. I think even asking the students for their prior experiences or if they have any humorous stories to share.
Ryan
Benson,
I agree that we need to be changing the scene every few minutes, especially for adult learners. And we want to be careful in getting too far off topic as that can lead to the total derailment of the presentation or class.
Ryan
I agree. I have to walk around the room and make sure to tell a story to reinforce the objective.
I too agree. I sometimes ask my students to stand up and stretch for a minute. Or to break up the monotony I ask each person to turn to their right and say hello to the person next to them. This can change the mood of the class especially if it is a morning presentation and students are still asleep!
