Training : Is A Good Training Still Possible? (2nd part)
In the first part of this article, I gave an overview of the importance of the content and of the teacher/trainer itself to insure the success of a good training.
It is not by chance that I have decided to talk about those aspects first because they are related to a common factor, which is, in my opinion, THE crucial point of the training and is also the third key to a successful training; your AUDIENCE!
3. The AUDIENCE
Vs
???
The first question we should ask ourselves, and this even before we start thinking about the content or the format, is: What is my audience? Who are the people participating in this training? Are they administrative executives? Are they corporate professionals? Are they daily workers? In which field are they working? What is the group age? And so many other question!
By knowing in advance who is going to be part of our audience, we can already start thinking about the main underlying direction of the whole training. We can think about the tone to use; which vocabulary will have the biggest impact. What are the comparisons and/or the examples in order to avoid discrimination or even offending the participants? Which words should we use that will be favorably interpreted? On the opposite side, what are the words/examples that will create a negative reaction?
The more you are able to adapt the content to your audience, the more successful your training is going to be; it will be more enlightening for the participants because they can recognize themselves in what you say and put it into practice.
5. Audio-Visual Support
Unless you are giving a training about a very complex topic that requires visualization in order to be able to grasp its full meaning, my own experience advises against using audio-visual
support.
Why, will you ask? Simply because the attention of your audience is not focused on you anymore but on your video, your slides, the kind of instrument you are using, its quality and its technology. In other words, you are bringing them a considerable sum of distractions on a silver tray that will eventually make you lose the attention of one or more of the participants. When this happens, it is difficult to get the attention back, especially if the group is large. You are the one who has the required and sought knowledge from the participants. Keep their attention on you and then you will be able to control a controlled, dynamic and interactive atmosphere.
On the other hand, if you do have to use audio-visual support for your presentation/training. first make sure that it works properly. That may sound trivial but I assure you it is not (you would be surprised how many times I have heard about such a situation!) Also keep in mind that the information you are projecting/showing must be concise, direct, powerful, visually clear and easy on the eyes and that only repeats the general lines of what you are saying. The audio-visual support must not become the presentation/training itself. People will keep listening to you because they will want to know more and this way the attention of every one remains focused on you and not on your beautiful images, your long texts, or your complex graphics.
5. Material
We have to carefully select the material we want to use in a training. Is it appropriate to the training and its objectives?
For example, in an enterprise linguistic training, we can give exercises to the participants they will answer/fill out directly, in real time, individually or in small groups. Obviously, if I ask them what is the most wonderful place they would like to visit for a vacation stay, I doubt the interest and relevance of this exercise is the most appropriate. But, if I ask them to elaborate different answers to a question that might be submitted to them in an official business meeting and then to explain to me what are the nuances among the different ways that were expressed by the participants themselves, I think this could give them something to use in their everyday life.
Choose material that will generate a reaction, a response, an organization of some kind asking the participants to move, to think, to build something together so they can put to use what you are teaching them. If you run out of idea, do searches on how to animate/direct a training session. There are plenty of articles written on the subject. If procrastination takes hold of you, always keep in mind that role plays are very effective and productive if they are well directed.
We can clearly see that presenting information is not always an easy task and there are numerous factors we have to take into account if we want to be somewhat successful …or have a definite success. Each theme mentioned in this two-part article will be given more attention in the pages to come, in more explicit terms than just a simple check-list.
Write to you soon,
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Louis Carle
Director,
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