I’ve been teaching communication for almost 20 years now, but this year has been unlike any other. We all have to wear masks. And I learned after just a week or two of trying to lecture live while wearing a mask, that it wasn’t going to work for me. Or for my students. So I did what all of us have had to do over and over again during the past difficult year, I adapted. I created lecture videos at home that I would then show in class. We would pause and discuss things, but the majority of the content would be taught through video. That’s because I wanted the full force of my volume and facial expressions to help me teach the world of public speaking.
Communication has changed a lot in recent days due to restrictions and cautions surrounding the Coronavirus. Let’s look at how both our verbal and nonverbal communication are different these days because of wearing masks.
Verbally
By now, you’ve probably experienced firsthand some of the difficulties of trying to communicate through masks. One of the biggest problems has to do with volume. It’s tough to hear each other through masks because they block our airflow. And lung capacity, or airflow, is how we produce volume. Dr. Christopher Chang says, “The lungs are what gives power to a voice. Weak lungs = weak voice.” In order to illustrate the connection between volume and airflow, Dr. Chang gives this example. Take a deep breath. Then exhale all of the air out of your lungs. Now, try to speak loudly without taking in any more air. You can’t. So it makes sense that our restricted airflow would affect our speaking volume.
Another way masks have changed our verbal communication ties into enunciation. The Balance for small businesses says, “When you don’t make an effort to pronounce each syllable of each word properly and words get slurred together, it can be hard for listeners, audiences, interviewers, etc., to decipher what you’re saying.” Masks make it even harder to make out our verbal messages. So we either have to get used to repeating ourselves or enunciating more clearly the first time.
Nonverbally
Masks have also caused us to lose one of our primary forms of nonverbal communication: facial expression. And this loss has been particularly evident in the field of presentations. Normally, a speaker can gauge his or her effectiveness by picking up on nonverbal cues from the audience. Smiles that show engagement. Or frowns that clue the speaker in to frustration or confusion. But when you are speaking to a group who all have masks on, it can feel as if you are speaking into a void or vacuum. And so much of what you’ve been accustomed to as a speaker simply can’t be seen in the current context.
We’ve tried to make up for this by engaging other forms of nonverbal communication. We might exaggerate head nodding or give thumbs up. Or as CNN reported, we might wave to say goodbye on Zoom calls, even when we have the benefit of saying “goodbye.” This article quotes Laura Dudley, an associate clinical professor at Northeastern University and expert in behavior analysis and body language as saying, “This personal touch is missing. We’re hungering for that human interaction, that friendliness, so we’re starting to do things like waving to say goodbye.”
Tips for Communicating Through a Mask
We hopefully and likely won’t be communicating through masks forever. But in the meantime, we can continue to adapt our communication to make sure our messages are getting through. Here are few tips to help:
- Take a deep breath before speaking so that you’ll have plenty of lung support to project your voice.
- Speak a little louder and a little more slowly than you normally would.
- Work to carefully enunciate your words; avoid slurring sounds together.
- Use your eyes and eyebrows to help communicate emotion.
- Make use of hand motions and goodwill gestures (like “thumbs up” or waving).
- Ask for verbal responses in the place of nonverbal communication.
- Exaggerate forms of nonverbal support like head nods when listening to a speaker.
While our human communication has undergone lots of changes in the past year, I know this. We can still communicate with each other effectively. We just have to do it a little differently.
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