Audience Engagement Techniques in Oral Presentations

Public speaking is often conceptualized as a one-way monologue performed by a speaker for a listening audience. This monologic approach faces challenges and limited results as demonstrated by the education literature on active learning. In response to this research, this practitioner article explores the nature and effective execution of five universal Audience Engagement Techniques that provide opportunities for a speaker to turn their passively listening audience into active participants in a dialogue. Practical and theoretical implications of Audience Engagement Techniques generally are also discussed.