GIVING A SUCCESSFUL PRESENTATION

How often did you lose your interest before the speaker had even come halfway?

Was it because of the subject of the talk or was it the way the speaker presented it?

What can you do to catch the audience’s attention for the whole duration of your talk?

The introduction of your speech must immediately engage your audience. If you don’t get their attention within the first minute of speaking, they may be lost to you forever. Almost everyone listens in the beginning. This is the moment to make clear that you will present work that the audience can’t afford to miss.

If you want to get your message through, you should state it loud and clear in the beginning, and repeat it at the end.

The best approach, however, is to divide your presentation in several parts, each ended by an intermediate conclusion. People in the audience who got distracted can always easily catch up with you, particularly if you outline the structure of your talk in the beginning.

TIPS

Use adequate, readable, visual aids (transparencies, slides).

Try to vary your rate. Key ideas and complicated points or concluding remarks are best presented at a slower pace.

Try to make the visual contact with the audience. Pause for emphasis.

You can raise the interest of attendees who are not interested in your subject by giving them the impression that they will learn something from your talk.

Your presentation will be most effective if you use simple language. Formal language is more difficult to understand for the audience.

Careful timing is extremely important. Going overtime is an offence to the audience and to the speakers following you. Nothing is more embarrassing than that the chairman has to stop you before you have been able to present your conclusions.

Prepare your notes to use during your presentation. Notes help guide you through your presentation. Be brief but specific.

Start in time.

Try to capture the message of your presentation in a sentence. This is difficult. You will only be able to do this if you really master the subject.

Avoid all irrelevant details.

How you begin your presentation depends on how formal the situation is. The audience prefers a relatively informal approach.

Fairly formal / More friendly
Perhaps we should begin.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
On behalf of … may I welcome you to ...
My name is …
I’m responsible for…
This morning I would like to (discuss, report on, present)…
If you have any questions you would like to ask, I will be happy to answer them.
Perhaps we can leave any questions you may have until the end of the presentation. / Ok, let’s get started.
Morning, everyone.
Thanks for coming.
I’m … As you know…
I’m in charge of …
What I want to do this morning is (talk to you about, tell you about, show you)…
Feel free to ask any questions you like as we go along.
And don’t worry, there will be time left over for questions at the end.

It’s essential to state the purpose of your presentation. To do this clearly and effectively you need a few simple presentation verbs:

This morning I’m going to talk to you about/tell you about/show you how to/report on the results of…

So, I will begin by filling you in on the background of/making a few observations about/outlining/giving you an overview on the results of/bringing you up-to-date on the latest findings…

… and then I will go on to highlight what I see as/put the situation into some kind of perspective/make detailed recommendations regarding/discuss in more depth the implications of the data in the files in front of you.

Key items to remember:

Who is in audience?

Where the meeting to be held?

When will the meeting be?

  • Know the equipment you will be using.
  • Do not read verbatim.
  • Speak to your audience, not to your visuals.
  • Do not block the view of the overhead screen while presenting.
  • Speak slowly, clearly and with enough volume for the entire audience to hear.
  • Adhere to your time limit.
  • Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse!!!

!!! Have a good start and finish!

(Good morning! I’m… and I will…

Thank you for your attention… happy to answer any questions!)

Be aware of physical aspects of delivery (gestures, eye contact, body language, voice, mannerisms)

Decide upon the mode of delivery (impromptu, reading, memorized, extemporaneous)

Crib sheets are acceptable but use: large typeface, double space, bullet points, highlights/circles for main points, numbered pages.

Maintain interest by: good opening/closing, good structure, be specific/avoid generalization, speak with facts, demonstrate enthusiasm.

Review your narration: length of sentences, continuity, simplicity.

Practice your presentation: write a script, practice in front of the mirror, practice in front of friends or groupmates, memorize structure, not all content.

Check your presentation for:

  • Organisation and Strategy
  • Clear Objectives
  • Sequence of Main Points
  • Main Points Versus Time
  • Duplication/Repetition
  • Enough Evidence for Conclusions

USEFUL EXPRESSIONS

Introducing the topic

The subject of this talk/presentation …

I’m going to talk about …

My topic today is …

I’d like to talk today about …

I’m here today to …
My purpose today is to …
What I want to do today is to …
My objective today is to …
My main aim this afternoon is … / consider
review
present
introduce
analyse
describe
outline
discuss

Outlining the structure of your talk

There are three main points to consider… First, I’ll talk about … then … and finally …

I’m going to divide my talk into three sections …

I have divided the talk/my report/our findings/this presentation into three (four, etc.) sections/parts.

Presenting, initially, the talk’s organization

The first part of my talk will concern/will deal with …

Firstly,
To start with,
Secondly,
Thirdly,
After this,
Next,
Then,
Finally, / I’d like to
I want to
I’m going to
I shall / talk about …
go over …
look at …
review …
present …
analyse …
consider …
discuss …

Closing a point/Changing the subject

Well, I think that’s all I want to say on …

I think that concludes what I have to say about …

Moving on now to …

Let me turn now to …

If we can now look at …

Having considered/discussed/looked at/examined/reviewed/analysed let’s now turn to …

Linking subjects in your talk/Referring back

As I said earlier, …

As I mentioned earlier, …

As we saw earlier, …

I’ll be coming back to this later.

I’ll return to this point later.

Later, I will be talking about …

Involving your audience

As you all know, …

As I’m sure you are all aware of …

Checking that your listeners understand

Are you with me so far?

Is that clear?

Giving examples

For example …

For instance …

Such as ..

X can be shown/illustrated/exemplified by …

Analysing

The main explanation for this is …

A particular reason is …

A key problem …

There are two reasons/explanations for this. First, … Second, …

This is/can be explained by two factors. First, … Second, …

This is due to … and also to …

One reason for this is … Another reason …

Giving your opinion

My (own/personal) view (on this matter) is that …

Personally, I think that …

The way I look at it is this: …

As far as I can see …

Summarising

So we have looked at … and we’ve seen that …

To put it in a nutshell, …

To put it briefly, …

To summarise, I’d like to …

Thanking the audience

I’d like to thank you for your interest and attention.

That you (very much) for your attention.

Using your voice.

Use techniques for highlighting, pausing and stressing.

Make sure you know how to say any long or technical words you may need.

interesting
ANYONE can become a successful manager.
But, of course, the unprepared,
the untrained
and those given too much responsibility before they’re ready will fail.
That’s what this morning’s presentation
is all about. / dull
Anyone can become a successful manager.
But, of course, the unprepared,
the untrained
and those given too much responsibility before they’re ready will fail.
That’s what this morning’s presentation
is all about.

The ability to present information in comprehensive pieces or chunks is by far the most important presentation skill you need.

EX.6 Deliberately placing the main stress at the beginning or in the middle of a sentence you can subtly change the meaning of what you say.

Look at the following examples:

The BRITISH will never agree to that.

The British will NEVER agree to that.

The British will never AGREE to that.

The British will never agree to THAT.

Try reading out each example with different stress.

INTRODUCING VISUALS.

Visuals are important in any professional presentation. Why? How can they help?

Teacher’s Visuals information is highly memorable and reduces the amount of talking you have to do.

Visuals help to:

  • Focus the attention of your audience.
  • Illustrate points which are hard to visualize.
  • Reinforce your main ideas.
  • Involve and motivate the audience.
  • Save time.
  • Add humor.

VISUAL AIDS

Overhead transparencies, slides or computer projection?

Types of Visual Aids.

-Lists and Tables

-Pie Charts and Maps

-Block Diagrams, Schemes

-Bar Charts and Alpine Charts

-Color vs. Black and White

-Cartoons

Projection of visual aids.

-Chalk Boards

-Flip Charts

-Overheads

-35mm Slides

-PC Projector

-Video Tapes

Introduction

Take a look at this …/Let’s have a look at this … /I’d like you to look at this …

Here we can see …

The … represents … And the … represents …

Hightlights and comments

I’d like us to look at … in more detail. As you can see, …

I would also like to draw your attention to …

If you look at it more closely, you’ll notice …

I’m sure the implication of this/the conclusion to be drawn from this are clear to all of us.

EX.1 What types of oral presentations can you name?

EX.2 Work in teams. Enumerate the most common mistakes of the speaker and presentation errors. Then work in turns, one team names one of these mistakes, another team suggests possible ways to avoid them.

For example: The speaker uses unclear sentences, spoken either too fast or too slow!

It’s better to rehearse your presentation!

The speaker’s presentation is too long and monotonous!

Take your stopwatch and go!

EX.3 In a good presentation the speaker tells the audience when he/she moves on to the next point or changes direction. You can do it effectively, using simple phrases as ‘signposts’ to guide the audience through your presentation.

to move on to go back to recap to expand on to conclude to turn to
to summarize to digress to elaborate on

Choose one of the ‘signpost’ expressions from the box for the following situations:

  1. When you want to make your next point. _____
  2. When you want to change direction. _____
  3. When you want to refer to an earlier point. _____
  4. When you want to repeat the main points. _____
  5. When you want to give a wider perspective. _____
  6. When you want to do a deeper analysis. _____
  7. When you want to give the basics. _____
  8. When you want to depart from your plan. _____
  9. When you want to finish your talk. _____

EX.4 Giving presentation in a foreign language is a challenge. If you have problems during your presentation DON’T panic. Pause. Sort out the problem and continue.

Here are the eight most common problems people face. These survival phrases will help you to get out of difficult situations during a presentation.

Match the expressions.

WHAT YOU THINK / WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY
1. I have got my facts wrong!
2. Too fast! Go back!
3. I’ve forgotten to say something!
4. Too complicated! Make it simple!
5. I’m talking nonsense!
6. How do you say this in English?
7. Wrong! Try again!
8. I’m running out of time. / a) Sorry. Perhaps I didn’t make it quite clear!
b) Sorry, let me rephrase that.
c) Sorry, I should just mention one thing!
e) So, just to give you the main points here.
f) Sorry, what I mean is this.
g) Sorry, what is the word I am looking for?
h) So, let’s just recap on that.
i) So basically, what I was saying is this.

If you learn these expressions by heart, you will be able to do it automatically and, therefore, confidently.

EX.5 The secret to success lies in this old adage:

“Tell them what you are going to tell them,

Tell them,

Tell them what you told them.”

How do you understand this maxim?

Teacher’s In other words include three major sections in your presentation: an introduction, body and conclusion. A good introduction must grab the audience’s attention.

The body of your presentation contains the main points and supporting data.

In your conclusion, review your key points and why they are significant.