1-14 misunderstanding, a desire to participate, fatigue, or  a lack of interest. If you are dealing with young trainees, you sometimes may need to remind them that they must give undivided attention to the instruction. 2. Maintain a high degree of enthusiasm. 3. Speak    in    a    natural,    conversational    voice. Enunciate your words clearly. Make certain the trainees can hear every spoken word. 4. Emphasize   important   points   by   the   use   of gestures, repetition, and variation in voice inflection. 5. Check trainee comprehension carefully throughout the presentation by watching the faces of the trainees and by questioning them. Observing  facial  expressions  as  an  indication  of doubt  or  misunderstanding  is  not  an  absolute  way  of ensuring   trainee   comprehension.   Some   trainees   may appear to be comprehending the subject matter when, in reality, they are completely confused. Trainees who are in doubt often hesitate to make their difficulty known. They may hesitate because  of  natural  timidity,  fear  of being classified as stupid, or failure  to  understand  the subject   matter   well   enough   to   explain   where   their difficulty lies. Frequently ask if the class has any questions, thus giving the trainees an opportunity to express any doubts or   misunderstandings   on   their   part.   Based   on   your personal knowledge and past experiences, ask specific questions about those areas which might give trainees the most  trouble.  Some  instructors  make  the  mistake  of waiting until the end of the presentation to ask questions. The best time to clear away mental fog is when the fog develops. Mental fog tends to create a mental block that prevents the trainee from concentrating  on  the  subject matter being presented. (Later  in  this  section  you  will find techniques related to asking questions, calling upon trainees to answer questions, and evaluating answers.) 6. Instruct    on    the    class    level.    Use     words, explanations, visual illustrations, questions, and the like, directed to the needs of the average trainee in the class. 7. Stimulate trainees to think. Think, as used here, refers to creative thinking, rather than a mere recall of facts   previously   learned.   You   can   use   a   number   of instructional  devices  for  stimulating  trainee  thinking. Among those devices are thought-provoking questions, class    discussions,    problem    situations,    challenging statements, and rhetorical questions (a question to which no  answer  is  expected).  Another  device  is  the  use  of suggestions, such as “I want you to think along with me” and “Consider your reaction to this situation.” Discussion Method Discussion  methods  are  effective  in  getting  the trainees to think constructively while interacting with the rest  of  the  group.  Conduct  discussions  with  large  or small groups; however, small groups are more desirable. You can control and direct a small group more  easily than you can larger groups of 10 or more trainees. If a group is extremely large, break it into smaller groups or teams with a discussion leader for each team. The use of the terms class discussion and directed discussion in this  text  refer  to  methods  in  which  you facilitate  verbal  exchange  in  the  class.  To  use  these methods, first lay a suitable foundation for the discussion by  asking  one  or  more  challenging  questions.  Then stimulate  the  trainees  to  discuss  the  basic  questions; finally, guide the discussion to a logical conclusion. In the directed discussion, you act as the chairman or moderator. As a result of your questions, suggestions, and redirection of ideas, the trainees in the class become genuinely interested in exploiting all angles of the central problem. They forget the normal classroom restraints and begin to talk to each other as they would when carrying on  an  ordinary  conversation.  A  true  class  discussion requires  a  trainee-to-trainee  interchange  of  ideas.  An instructor-to-trainee interchange of ideas during a typical question-and-answer period is not a class discussion. To conduct a class discussion, you must make more extensive  and  more  thorough  preparations  than  you would  for  a  lecture.  Although  the  trainees  supply  the ideas,  you  must  have  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the subject matter to be able to sift out pertinent ideas. Be aware  of  ideas  that  may  lead  the  trainees  off  on  a tangent;  steer  the  discussion  away  from  those  ideas. Guide the trainees away from irrelevant ideas and toward the desired goals without dominating the discussion. You can adapt some ideas to discussions more easily than other ideas. The most easily adaptable areas require trainees to compare, contrast, and weigh facts, concepts, and ideas. They also require trainees to solve problems, particularly those dealing with human relations, and to glean  hidden  or  obscure  information  from  scattered