Oral Defense

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In my English class we are supposed to present an Oral Defense for our paper. One of the requirements is to make eye contact, and I showed just how very Aspie I am by asking what was the point of making eye contact.

My instructor told me it was to make the presentation engaging. I still don't understand what she means but I know that she'll take off points if I don't make eye contact.

Have any of you been in a similar situation? If so, do you have any pointers?

Thanks

Instead of actually looking them in the eyes, just look in their general direction, and look at the face of the teacher once or twice.

The (frankly, rather small) point of making eye contact is to reinforce to the speaker/audience that you're paying attention or are addressing them. To me a simple 'Yes, I'm listening" will do, but it's never enough!

Just look in their general direction. That seems doable. Thanks

I look at the bridge of their nose or their mouth. I find that the most comfortable.

I've never looked people in they eyes during a presentation. There are too many eyes to choose from to look at and i have no idea WHO's eyes i am supposed to be looking at and it seems wierd to keep darting from person to person. I used to sing in front of the church fairly often and i found it rather disturbing to try to look at any particular person during a song. The best advice i recieved and that i used quite often, was to look just above people's heads.

i cant even look at people full stop. not even there general direction

Eye contact is totally silly in this case. Even NAS's don't tend to do this. One is simply trying to gauge the reaction of the crowd - and for that eye contact is unneccessary. You do want to look at the crowd regularly, both so that you can engage them, as well as to see the effect that you are having.

I had to do that in english class at high school, i just stared right though them to something on the wall behind them, this also works great when having to give a speach to a group of people, hope this helped

Look at the tops of the heads of the people in the back row. Assuming the classroom isn't really small from front to back, scanning the tops of their heads should look close enough to eye contact to the prof. Some of the students as well for that matter.

yeah, when talking to an audience... you don't have to look directly in someone's eyes.... it's best just to pan the whole room.

as for making it engaging.... not sure how to help w/o knowing your topic.... any details there?

since TAing... i have found that if i am able to start verbalizing that stream of conscious monolouge going on in my head ... that it makes for a lively show ^_^