For example, making eye contact with the person who asked the question, turning our body toward them (“giving them our shoulders”), taking a small step toward them, and/or smiling can let the questioner know that we are listening to them and respect their question. By being aware of our body language, we can make the experience better for everyone. When we answer questions, our body language matters. Validating and thanking our questioners provides us with the opportunity to create connections with our audience and relieve their (and our) anxiety about asking questions.
This will let the questioner and the rest of the audience know that we want to hear their thoughts and we invite their questions. We should genuinely thank them for their question and validate their question as interesting and important. It is important to validate them for using their voice and taking the social risk of asking their question in front of us and the rest of the audience. It is intimidating to speak in front of an audience and the person asking a question is doing just that. When we teach and present, because we are so focused on our own experience, it is easy to forget that the people asking us questions may be anxious about doing so. The Smile-Breathe-Think-Talk process is a simple way to regulate the excite-nerve we experience when answering questions and to allow us to better craft our answers. If we wait to talk until after thinking, it is less likely we will think of a better answer while we are delivering a hastier answer. After more calmly considering our answer, we finally talk and relay our more carefully considered answer to the audience. During this pause we think about the answer to our question. Our breathing allows us to further regulate our emotions and provides a pause so that we do not rush into an answer to the question. We recommend smiling for the benefits smiling provides us, even if the person asking the question cannot see us (e.g., answering questions remotely). The smile is not really for the audience (although it may help us connect to them), but allows us to calm down, experience more positive emotions, and to view the question-and-answer interaction more positively. To help manage the anxiety and to reconsider our emotional experience as excitement, we begin by smiling. When asked a question, it is normal to get anxious and excited at the same time (an emotion we call “excite-nerve” Engage the Sage, 2019). We should use the four-step process of Smile-Breathe-Think-Talk when answering questions. In the following, we discuss five simple strategies to enhance our engagement as teachers and presenters that, in doing so, will make the experience of answering questions better for us and our audience.
Questions provide us the opportunity to demonstrate PEACE, to build community, and to demonstrate how knowledgeable and thoughtful we are. For example, by bringing PEACE to our classes in the form of our Preparation, Expertise, Authenticity, Caring, and Engagement (Saucier, 2019b Saucier & Jones, 2020), we can intentionally create class environments that promote learning. We may also enhance engagement in our classes and presentations through our teaching personas.
It is important to first note that our experiences as teachers and presenters impact the experiences of our audiences, such that when we are more engaged, they are more engaged and learn better from us (Saucier, 2019a Saucier, Miller, Martens, & Jones, in press). While questions are scary, we believe inviting questions during both our teaching and our presentations will allow us to optimize the teaching and learning context. The questions are often the most stressful part of teaching and presenting because we cannot truly predict or control the questions we are asked. In academia, we get asked a lot of questions whether we are teaching, giving research presentations, interviewing, or mentoring.
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