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Charisma and Presentations

12/29/2019

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The Freakonomics podcast put out a special episode on December 26 with host Stephen Dubner chatting with his guest Angela Duckworth.  They each asked the other a question and then let the conversation flow from there.  Dubner began by asking her a multiple choice question about money, intellect. and grit.  She then asked him if charisma could be taught.  As the conversation turned to charismatic people being assumed to be good public speakers, I started listening closely to the various ways they defined charisma and thinking about how they applied to my perceptions of a good speaker.

Let's start with several definitions of charisma. Oxford gives two interesting ones. First,
"compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others", and second, " a divinely conferred power or talent". I'm not sure that a public speaker at an academic conference needs to inspire devotion like they are some success guru or religious leader so this definition feels too extreme when saying that a good presenter is charismatic.  The second one is a little better if you believe that some people are naturally good public speakers just as charisma might be thought of an an inherent trait in some people. (Duckworth and Dubner have an interesting conversation about Bill Clinton and why he is considered to be charismatic by so many people.)

On the podcast, Duckworth also said, "So I think charisma is a kind of— almost like a magnetic force that draws people’s attention in a very positive way. So when we think of somebody who is really charismatic, it’s like you can’t take your eyes off them. And they’re the star." I think a good speaker can be like this.  Time flies while they are holding the microphone. Dubner added, "Mine would be something like charisma as the quality of— someone having the quality that makes me want to do what they do or believe what they believe." A good speaker can also be persuasive so this tracks as well.

After a bit more discussion, Duckworth said, "Here’s a narrower definition, because I don’t want it to just be people we like, or likability. I think that when most people think of charisma, they’re thinking about a public— public speaking, like TED or some other venue." And he's where things started to really get tied together. 

Eye contact came up.  Charismatic people make really strong eye contact and look at whoever they are talking to like they really matter.  I feel that eye contact is something that can make or break a presentation.  It's rare that an audience member will praise a presentation where the presenter looked mostly at the screen. A good presenter is constantly reading the audience's reactions to what he/she is saying but also making eye contact to build and maintain trust.

Charismatic people signal that the person they are speaking to matters. Dubner and Duckworth bring up Dale Carnegie and say that an event like a book signing, you would make eye contact and use the person's name.  As a presenter, you might mention something you heard in an earlier talk or praise the last speaker in the room, something to show that this is a unique event and you aren't giving the same over-rehearsed talk. This audience matters to you.

Maybe the most interesting thing that was brought up was the idea of charismatic people signaling that they have high status. According to Duckworth, in order to be considered charismatic a person needs to give off the vibe of "I like you and I like me." For "I like you', see the previous paragraph. For "I like me", she explains, "How do you signal 'I like me?' Which is really a proxy for 'the world likes me.' That actually is a little more nuanced. But I think that smiling, or basically not being self-deprecating— maybe things like posture help. But I think the most effective way to do it is for somebody else to signal that you’re high-status, or that the world likes you." Doesn't that sound like a good presenter?  Confident, not afraid to smile, no excuses or apologies, not putting yourself down, standing up straight... and these come after we submit a bio talking about what we have accomplished that makes us worthy of giving the talk and often we have someone introduce us to also signal that we were chosen to be here and "the world like us".


I found the podcast episode interesting and hope you will give it a listen or just read the transcript in the link.  I also hope that the next time you have an opportunity to give a presentation you think not just about what you are going to say (the content) but also about how you are going to say it (the delivery).  When you put these two things together, the results are usually positive.  Just don't forget to finish on time, even if it means saying a little less than you wanted to.  Going over your time signals that you didn't really like the audience that much after all.

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Around the World in 80 Keystrokes

12/10/2019

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When my 12-year-old daughter comes home from school and I ask how her day was, the response is usually either “fine”, “nothing special”, or “same as usual”.  So when she replies, “We did something really cool today!” I’m all ears.
 
Trip Planning Project
She told me about an activity where her teacher gave them a budget of around $750 and told them to plan a trip to Jeju Island, “The Hawaii of Korea”. The budget would need to be enough for two people to get there, find a place to stay for three nights, eat, and do some sightseeing. We live in Daejeon, located in the middle of South Korea, so her transportation options included flying or taking a train/bus to the coast and then taking a ferry.  My daughter has been a several family trips but this was the first time she was put in charge of planning all the details and she really enjoyed the challenge.
The three main skills she developed with this class project were trip planning, internet searching, and budgeting.  She said that trip planning wasn’t that hard since the teacher told her what the budget would need to cover; but the devil would be in the details and she would need to hone the latter two skills to be able to plan her trip effectively.
For internet searching, each student was provided with a Galaxy Tab connected to WiFi in the classroom.  I understand that many classrooms around the world will not have access to individual devices or wireless internet.  However, if the school has a computer lab this could be an excellent use for it.  Students could also work in groups if there are not many computers available.
My daughter explained that the teacher didn’t recommend any websites for finding transportation or hotel options so she used search engines like Google or the Korean equivalent, Naver, to look for travel booking websites. She really enjoyed finding good deals and having a say in where to go and what to do.
She felt that budgeting was the hardest part of the project and as a parent I couldn’t help but smile and think, “She finally understands what I mean when I say that we can’t afford something!”  She admitted to me that it was challenging to decide whether to stay in a nicer place and slash the food budget or give herself a little more to eat with. She also decided to try to enjoy free activities like hiking and going to the beach instead of buying museum and show tickets. This is a real-life conundrum that adults face when planning a trip so it was great to see her recognize how difficult it is to make these tough decisions.
She said that over the course of the semester the students did several versions of the project.  They could choose to travel alone or with a friend and stay in Korea or travel overseas.  The project was very useful because in addition to honing the skills I mentioned above, there was so much learner agency involved.  There were no right or wrong answers.  She had the freedom to make all the decisions and she just needed to stay under budget. Kudos to her teacher for planning this activity!
 
Foreign Country Investigation Project
I have introduced a similar project while leading English teacher training workshops.  First, I put the teachers in groups and distribute five or six kinds of foreign coins and paper money that I collected during overseas trips to each group.  We compare and contrast the different currencies and talk about how to scaffold lessons using the money as a prompt.  For lower-level students, we could focus on teaching vocabulary describing the colors, shapes, denominations, and the pictures on the money.  We could also teach comparative words like “bigger”, “more colorful”, and “more valuable” to compare two bills or coins. We might even ask higher-level students to guess why they think the pictures on the money were chosen to represent that country and then have discuss their own country’s currency.  It’s interesting to see how both teachers and students can struggle to remember all the people and objects on their money.
If the students are at a conversational level, we can take things a step further and do an internet search to learn more about one of the countries.  I usually ask the teachers to choose the country that they know the least about or want to visit the most.  Then I ask them to search online and find the capital, the population, the flight time from Seoul to the capital, how much the money from that country that they have at the table is worth in Korean money, and three interesting things to do or see if they travel there.  They love the activity and think their students would enjoy it too.  One thing to be aware of is that even if the students to search in English, the location services and device’s language settings may cause the results to be displayed in the local language.  This happened with teachers’ phones so you be sure that it can also happen with your students’ devices. 
 
Travel agencies around the world took a hit when websites like Booking.com, Google Flights, and TripAdvisor started becoming popular.  These websites made planning a trip incredibly easy by aggregating many possibilities and putting them all in one place.  They can also act as a virtual gateway to help our students learn more about other countries and cultures while giving them experience working with a budget by prioritizing different aspects of a trip and deciding where to splurge.  Regardless of the language they are using, online trip planning is the kind of class project that is practical, fun, and one of the few things my daughter came home and raved about. In my book, that makes it outstanding.
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