Teaching Presentation Skills

This article covers ways to teach presentations and what it means for the learner. There is a particular emphasis on building rapport with your audience, positive feedback and a simple activity that makes use of a useful resource for helping to structure presentations.

Always be Prepared

When planning a Business English course, for example, it is essential to find out whether the students need to give presentations as part of their work, and if any are forthcoming. If they do require them, then it would also be handy to ascertain exactly when they will be, and build them into the course accordingly. In general, if none are on the immediate horizon, then having a ‘giving a presentation’ session in the penultimate lesson can be valuable. By doing this, constructive criticism can be taken on board and taken to the last lesson in preparation for 'giving a presentation 2', with the aim being to improve upon the previous performance. Subsequently, the final feedback can be utilised after the course has finished.

For Academic English, it may be part of a syllabus if at University, so in this case, there would be important differences to pay attention to such as the length of the talk, the level of formality, what the audience already knows, whether a pointing stick needs to be used, or whether a chairman must be present.

How to win over your audience

Creating rapport between the presenter and the audience is of paramount importance. To begin with, when introducing this topic, you can brainstorm ideas on the board. Typical responses include: clarity, structure, knowing your material and being confident. As teacher, you should not discount these as they are contributing factors. It may surprise you that the crucial, game-changing elements may go unnoticed at this stage.

Keep an eye on them

When you probe and hint at body language you can start by asking questions like ‘’who should you look at?’’ regarding eye contact. You may get: ‘’look at everyone’’ as a response. Although you can always draw a pair of eyes and their field of vision (just lines pointing in various directions ahead) and explain that the presenter should look at sections of the audience. A joke might not go amiss if you remind them that they should not imagine the crowd naked, as this will not help, nor will it to stare at one person intently. Elicit from them why we need to make good eye contact, and usually the answer will come out that you will create a bond and you can also mention that by feeling included they are more likely to trust you and believe in what you say. After all, you can ask: “is it not true” and now comes a rhetorical question: “that you don’t trust somebody who will not look you in the eye?” followed by a pause; enough said. At this point, it is an opportune moment to warn of the dangers of reading from notes, and if you ask them why this might be, the students should guess that the less eye contact you can muster, the more chance you have of losing your audience altogether. Moreover, cue cards are OK if strictly rationed.

Next, when dealing with posture, you can use your whole body to illustrate what one shouldn’t do. You can also mimic actions, which can be humorous and therefore memorable; chewing, itching,?leaning, fidgeting, flicking your hair, having your arms crossed, putting your hands in your pockets, standing behind a podium, and using unnatural hand gestures (wave your hands about) are all favourites. If you have plenty of experience teaching presentations with some hilarious anecdotes you can use, then try one like how a student once waltzed in with his chest hair hanging out and was balancing on his stick (for pointing at his Power-point presentation) {P-P-P}. Further, you can point out that filming yourself on your phone and watching yourself back at home are good ways to pick up on these nasty habits and avoid them happening in the future. In addition, having somebody that you trust evaluate your performance can be worth its weight in gold. Lastly, walking is OK when done with purpose (show the opposite). Then give the example of Steve Jobs who would thoroughly rehearse his act: he’d introduce a new piece of kit, give a live demonstration of that new technology and be something of a guru, all while walking on stage.

Find your voice

Try to elicit the answers for each point you introduce, asking questions when necessary as before. Projecting your voice so you can be heard may not seem obvious to the uninitiated, but in a large room without a microphone it would be incredibly important. Pausing is a powerful tool that can help plant words into the minds of the listener. Emphasising words will make them stand out and, along with pausing and rhetorical questions; can help the listener to focus on something. Varying intonation will maintain interest, and at this point, quite suddenly, you can mock a monotonous tone, and ask whether you would buy something from a salesperson who spoke like this, for example.

A question of formality

Ask the students whether they need to use formal language or not. Then explain how vital it is to know your audience and what they know. If it is colleagues, it is likely to be informal. If it is clients, then it could well be formal; it depends on the culture practiced at the organisation. A group of lawyers may be far more informal with each other than they would be with their clients. For University students, their Professor is likely to expect a formal delivery, unless he/she is an exception to the rule. Overall, to avoid any nasty surprises, it is best just to ask which register they use.

What can’t be learned

Enthusiasm can’t be faked, and can influence the mood of those listening. Effectively, it goes hand-in-hand with confidence; an enthusiastic presenter should break down barriers. Without charisma, using humour, powerful pictures or summarising using intermediate summaries and linking words throughout, can make a difference. On the other hand, a charismatic person will be able to win over the audience with ease. Attracting and enticing, inspiring or even exhibiting enviable values; charisma is something that you are born with; either you have it or you don’t. Barack Obama, who speaks in short bursts, makes the most of pauses, uses humour and anecdotes, and has it in spades, as Jobs did. Great speakers such as these gents win over their audiences before even appearing before them.

Feedback

Circulate a clearly ordered list of key presentation skills and a space to write comments. It is crucial that each person be trained to say two things they liked about the presentation and one suggestion for improvement. This is because some cultures or people do not praise enough and if criticism is too harsh or insensitive, it can be detrimental to the confidence of the presenter. Then divide up groups to concentrate on different areas such as body language, which will have key areas mentioned: firstly, eye contact, gestures, posture and walking. Secondly, voice: projecting, pausing, emphasising, intonation and thirdly, structure: clear introduction, main body and conclusion, linking words, questions. There are more possibilities, though this should be enough to get on with. What takes place next is that you ask the presenter how he/ she felt about the talk, then instigate peer feedback and afterwards, you give your two cents worth.

Signalling Language resource:

https://www.personal.psu.edu/tct118/presentations/presentationskillsmaterials.pdf

The simple task it to write a mini presentation using a selection of signalling language from the link above. You can give between 15-30 minutes and then correct it. You can state that by using signalling language, it will give structure to your presentation and make it easier for the audience to follow.

How do you incorporate Presentations in your lessons? Please share. It would be great to hear from you!

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Below are some examples of which kinds of courses can incorporate presentations and some examples of organisations where these skills have been taught:

Daniel's Teaching Presentations CV

Courses

Academic English for International Studies

Academic English for the Sciences

Academic English for Biomedical Students

Academic English for Social Sciences

Academic English (open group)

English for Business (to a group of lawyers)

One-on-one (i.e. with a surgeon)

Intensive (i.e. with a civil servant)

Effective Business Communication

Teacher Training Workshop

Cambridge Exam Preparation (i.e. BEC Higher)

A selection of organisations

Abn Amro

Aegon

Ahold

Aon

Arup

Astrazenecka

bol.com

Eneco

Erasmus University, Rotterdam

Evofenedex

Cunningham Lindsay (now Sedgwick)

Customs

Deloitte

Dutch Railways

Eskens

Esli Redon

EY (Ernst & Young)

GMP+ International

Heineken Nederland BV, Zouterwoude

Hotel School

ING Bank

International School of the Hague

IPS Powerful People

Janssen Biologics, Leiden

Mauritshuis

Meijers

Ministry of Agriculture, The Hague

Ministry of Finance, The Hague

National Archive, The Hague

Nationale Nederlanden

Postcode Lottery, The

Port of Rotterdam

PWC

Quooker

Rabobank

ROC Mondriaan (The Hague)

RSM

Tax Authorities, The (Dutch)

Technische Unie

Tiqets (Brazil, Italy, Netherlands, Thailand)

University of Leiden

University of Utrecht

Van Lanschot

Wasserman Media Group