© Veronika Srchová 1

GIVING EFFECTIVE PRESENTATIONS I. BEFORE PRESENTING

1. EVALUATE YOUR AUDIENCE 2. CONSIDER THE OCCASION 3. DETERMINE THE LENGHT (usually 5 – 20 min.) – make it SHORT and CLEAR!! 4. DETERMINE THE PURPOSE: to entertain, inform, inspire, persuade (good presentations combine

elements of all four) 5. DECIDE ON CENTRAL THEME (not too complicated!!!) 6. DEVELOP BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE ON THE SUBJECT 7. GATHER FACTS 8. PREPARE SOME TASK FOR THE AUDIENCE

II. DURING THE PRESENTATION - STRUCTURE: Greet! →→→→ Introduce yourself! →→→→ Thank for the invitation! →→→→ Introduce

your talk! →→→→ Outline your talk! →→→→ Summarise main points! →→→→ Conclude talk! →→→→ Invite

questions!

- LANGUAGE: OPENING WORDS

Good morning (ladies and gentleman, dear colleagues,…). Welcome to…. Let me briefly introduce myself. I´m … It´s a great honour to be able to speak here today. I´m grateful for having the opportunity/chance to…

INTRODUCING the TALK

- Find a good opening – eg. a story that relates to the presentation / a surprising fact - Tell them what you are going to tell them:

I´m going to inform you about/ talk to you about/ present the recent….. The subject/topic of my presentation is……. I’d like to give you a brief overview of…. The reason I am here today is to talk about….

In my presentation I´ll be explaining…. The purpose of this talk is to….

MAIN PART OF THE PRESENTATION – STRUCTURING I’ve divided my talk into (four) main sections….. My presentation will be in (three) parts…… I´ll focus on two main points…. First of all/Firstly… secondly… thirdly… then…after that… lastly/finally Let´s start with…/ I´d like to begin with…. At the beginning …then… MOVING ON TO A NEW POINT Turning now to…

That brings us to… What I’d like to talk about now is…. Now I would like to describe…. Now let’s move on to the next point which is….

Having finished this part… As you can see on the handout this brings us to the last part.

PICKING UP THE THREAD

As I was saying… Coming back to what I was trying to explain… To return to my subject… This leads us back to what I was saying before….

© Veronika Srchová 2

SUMMARISING AND CONCLUDING - tell them what you have told them and close: Let me go through the main arguments…. To sum up…/ To summarise we can say…./ I´ll briefly summarise…. To recapitulate what I’ve been saying….. I’d like to conclude by saying that….

In conclusion,… I´d like to leave you with the following thought/idea

III. BEFORE/DURING/AFTER THE PRESENTATION 1. distribute HANDOUTS 2. INVOLVE the audience 3. invite the audience to ask QUESTIONS:

You can interrupt me at any time if you have any questions. After the presentation there will be time for questions. If you have any questions, I´ll be happy to answer them after my presentation. I´ll be happy to answer any questions after my talk.

Or If there are any questions, I’ll be pleased to answer them. Any further questions? I´d welcome any questions or comments. DIFFICULT QUESTIONS : I don´t think I´m the right person to answer that question. That is beyond my competence. Could we come back to that later?

CLOSING

Thank you for listening to me/ very much for the attention.

VISUALS REFERRING TO VISUALS As you can see from the table, pie chart, bar chart, graph, flow chart, pictogram, diagram, poster…. (We refer to “pictures” as “Figures” – Fig. 1, Fig. 2…….)

This solid/ broken/ dotted line/ curve/the shaded section gives us, shows, illustrates, indicates, represents….

Equipment: slide projector + slides/diapositives (AmE), OHP+ transparency/slide (AmE), flip chart,

white/blackboard, notebook – PowerPoint, video KEY RULES 3 Bs: big, bold, brilliant 3 Ss: simple, short, structured

Include the title a. structure of your talk! Never just read the text from the visuals (or from your notes) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Face the audience! Don´t block their view! Economise: Keep text to minimum! Use key words, graphs, tables….!

Don´t use too many visuals! Check the room, equipment, etc. beforehand! DELIVERY Voice: tempo (vary the speed!), volume (contrast quiet and loud parts!!!), expressiveness (high/low pitch), make

pauses Register/style: NOT written English! Linkers : use linking expressions Emphasizers: exaggerate a little (It is absolutely, extremely, completely, entirely good/interesting) Body language: (maintain eye contact, gestures,…) Time management: check the length and timing