We use several modalities when communicating our spoken messages. We tend to think of the words we choose as the main modality, but a significant amount of information is communicated in the way we sound when we are speaking (our voice volume, speech rate, etc.,) and the way we look (our body orientation, gestures, etc.) Floreo's immersive social interaction lessons allow Coaches opportunities to consider (and potentially address) the way the Learner looks and sounds during social exchanges.
The way we sound: The sound of our speech includes elements such as the rise and fall of voice tone, emphasis of particular words, how loud or soft someone is speaking, how quickly/slowly someone is speaking, voice pitch. Consider someone saying the phrase, "The bus is late." Now, consider how a person saying that phrase feels when they are using a high pitch and faster than average rate of speed. Consider the sentence, "You borrowed my book." How is the mood changed (and even the underlying meaning) if a person adds rising intonation or emphasizes different words? "You borrowed my book?"; "You borrowed MY book?"; or, "YOU borrowed my book?" The words stay the same, but a skilled listener will instantly recognize the implied meaning or emotional state of the speaker simply through the changes in the speaker's voice.
The way we look: When listeners watch us while we are communicating, a number of variables can influence how they are interpreting our message. Listeners might be watching our facial expressions, how close we stand to our communication partner, our gestures, whether we might be holding some sort of prop, are we fidgeting, etc. VR isn't a great modality (at this point) for teaching facial expressions, (stay tuned! the technology is evolving!), but other factors, especially body orientation toward the speaker and gestures may be addressed. There are no right or wrong answers here. Moreover, much is influenced by the culture.
Dr. Albert Mehrabian conducted studies back in the 1960's and 1970s where he described the balance of verbal and nonverbal information that listeners use when interpreting a speaker's emotional reaction to a topic. Specifically, he looked at the words conveying a speaker's message as compared to their voice tone and their facial expressions. His findings suggested that listeners in these studies were influenced primarily by a speaker's facial expression (55%), next, by the speaker's voice tone and inflection (38%) and lastly by the words they use (7%).
While we don't want to overgeneralize these findings, this information does give us pause when we are thinking about our Learners who need help with their communication.
We want Learners to be able to have their freedom of expression. Sometimes, Learners need to avoid eye contact in order to effectively find the words they want to say. Other Learners might need to pace in order to communicate and still others might not be able to self-monitor speech rate or voice volume. In other cases, providing Learners with feedback on the look and sound of their verbal communication can help them become more effective communicators.
