At the Harvard 50th anniversary celebration a few months ago, they showed a video of Fred Mosteller’s TV lectures on statistics from 1960 or so. The thing that struck me was that Fred was speaking reallllly reallllly slowly. He was a slow talker in real life, but this was so slow that I’m pretty sure he was doing it on purpose, maybe following some specific advice to go slow. Fred was a great teacher (as I remember from being his T.A.), and it made me wonder if I should speak more slowly also. Probably the answer is yes.
Also, when you speak slowly, you have to think more carefully about what to keep in your lecture and what to leave out, which is probably a good idea too.
But not too slowly. My computational theory professor was an old man who spoke so slowly, I literally played back the video (the lectures were recorded for the web) at double speed so I wouldn't fall asleep. At double speed, he was only slightly brisker than a normal speaker. Of course, the opposite is just as bad..
Perhaps just more pauses between sentences?
I've noticed that *everything* televisual was slower in the old days. Action in old cop shows, like crossing the room and opening a door was acted out with what to my modern senses is excruciating slowness.
Speaking more slowly and pausing for things to sink in to the audience are probably the two single most common pieces of advice that magicians ever get.
If you think about it, there is very little difference between a magic show and a technical lecture to students … both involve convincing the audience that they care and that something that they didn't think possible has actually happened.
(I am a member of the Magic Castle in Hollywood and have heard this advice more times than I can count).
Ted,
I'm looking forward to the first time I teach a course in Spanish. Then I'll have to go really slow! The students will probably love it.
Yes, you probably should.
Especially with formulas.
One nice thing about a formula is that it compresses a lot of words (and thought) into something short and often easier to remember. But not easier to learn or absorb.
Also with anything graphical – the old 'picture is worth a thousand words' thing might mean that you should let someone look at a picture for the time it would take to utter a thousand words. And a good graphic might be worth even more than a thousand words
He may have been estimating how fast the note-takers were.
What I've found is that the faster you talk, the more suspicious people are. It's really bad to change speed during a presentation, because people assume that's the weak part of your argument. People who speed up at the end, to finish on time, always undercut their conclusion.
There are, however some languages, like Spanish, where the slower you talk, the less native speakers seem to understand…