The Learning
Process


relatively small amounts of grain for which an adapted traditional
basket would be perfectly adequate.
Third, your presentation should be coherently organized-in other
words, your messages should be easily understood by the farmers,
whether in term of the language you use or the logical way in which
you make your points. If you use a technical term with which the
farmers are not familiar, then you should go on to explain it in
everyday language. Percentages, for instance, may not mean a
great deal-but "two bags out of every ten" is the kind of concrete
language that farmers will easily grasp. Also, if your presentation
of information is not well prepared, then there is a risk that what
you say will be rambling and confusing.
Finally, the presentation should be made as lively as possible in
order to arouse attention and interest. The more confident you are
of your material, the more you are familiar with the community in
which you are working, the greater your chance to talk fluently and
enliven your delivery with humour that you know will be picked up
and appreciated by your listeners.
All these points will be taken up again and expanded in the
chapters that follow, which are concerned with various methods of
communicating extension messages-various ways of promoting
learning about agricultural topics and techniques.

Practice
Most of what you are trying to get across is to do with techniques,
so the learning will have happened, not when you have talked or
demonstrated, but only when the farmers can actually carry out the
recommended tasks themselves. So the opportunity for practice
becomes one of the most crucial conditions for learning. This is the
major theme of the next chapter, where we shall consider different
models of extension communication. We shall also be exploring the
relative advantages and disadvantages of two-way as opposed to
one-way methods of communication.
Sufficient to say at this point that, if we rely on only one-way
methods-talking and showing-then there is a risk ofinformation
over-load. There is also the possibility that, without guided prac-
tice, little or nothing will be learnt. The use of the word "guided"
here is significant; because it is possible for someone, without
guidance or supervision, to go on practising the same mistake!


Chapter 4