Nope. I still think it's entirely possible I've misunderstood your intent, but my meaning has nothing to do with the speaker being impeccable with his/her word or not. Audience members simply bring different context to the table, and the same message will not deliver the same outcome in terms of understanding.
I entirely agree with you on this point. Here's why...
Just for full disclosure, I'm an ex-teacher. Primary teacher, with a little bit of lecturing. I no longer work in teaching, I'm a business consultant in the ERP industry.
Full disclosure on my part, I am a certified restaurant trainer for a quick service restaurant chain (I train managers), not so much a classroom teacher. Nonetheless, may of the same techniques apply.
The reason I agree with your statement above is there are at least 3 distinct learning styles: visual, auditory, and hand-on. A good teacher has to recognize what kind of student s/he is speaking to in order to determine what approach is the most effective for that particular student. Also learning speed and personality come into play.
Sincerely, I mean no offence, but if you think your words never leave anything open to interpretation, you are either only speaking about very specific and technical items, or you're kidding yourself.
None taken. I was speaking in terms of intentionally leaving things open to interpretation. Aside from that, I'm am careful when selecting my words and do my best to leave as little as possible open to interpretation when my intent is not to.
I've been accused of a lot of things, but spoon-feeding my audience is certainly not one of them.
Please don't think I was accusing you of spoon-feeding your audience. My statements about spoon-feeding and that my teaching style may be different that yours were two separate thoughts. I can see how you may have made a connection given the sentences being back to back.
Regardless, you appear to be suggesting that you deliberately leave things open to interpretation as a way of encouraging your audience to more fully immerse themselves in the topic at hand, and actually think about it. In a generic sense I commend this. However, I cannot see communication in terms of a strict transactional process.
I've had success in using this technique in transactional communication, mostly in applications where I'm attempting to nail down what specifically my counterpart is trying to communicate.
I still think there is an inherent assumption here that lacks utility. The audience may believe that they HAVE understood the information. Small and dicky as the example was, my audience in PNG was quite convinced they knew what I meant. I didn't account for their background in framing the instruction (due to ignorance) and they weren't able to effectively clarify (due to ignorance). We both believed the instruction made sense, but it made 'different' sense to each side of the 'transaction'.
You make a very valid point here. It is important to understand everything one possible can about one's audience to ensure accurate presentation and optimal understanding.
Have you studied communication models by country? It's an interesting concept, and highlights cultural differences in approach. You can believe in them or not, of course, but on a basic level there are very clear differences in structure when communicating across cultures and countries. Having a single communication approach not accounting for audience is a good way to ensure miscommunication.
I have not. Any recommendations on the best place to study these?
Also, I feel I've hijacked
@Willamena's thread and taking it in an entirely different direction. Perhaps it would be prudent to start a new thread if we wish to pursue this discussion.
