subject: No Fear Presentations In English [print this page] Does the thought of making a presentation leave you cold? Would yo rather do ANYTHING other than stand up in front of an audience and talk for 20 minutes? When you conside that you have to do all of this completely in English, does that make it even worse?
Stop now. It doesn't have to be this way. By following our simple step by step guide below, we can remove the fear and help you to make any presentation in English both successful and pleasant!
1 It's all in the mind
Take two people; one is confident and experienced when it comes to giving presentations, the other is frightened to death. If we were to get inside each of these two person's minds we would observe two totally different scenarios. We play videos to ourselves in our minds when we anticipate what a future event will be like. The frightened person will be playing a very negative video: they will be sweating and tense and with a dry mouth, struggling to speak as they stand paralysed with fear. There will be clear images of them failing as the audience looks totally bored or confused. People will whisper and laugh to each other as they sit and watch you bomb out live. Can't you just feel your red and hot face? Contrast this with the confident guy, smiling, at ease and in control. He makes a clever joke and everybody laughs as they anticipate a well-delivered, fun presentation. This guy's video contains strong positive feelings, the buzz of a large crowd laughing, the look of interest, enjoyment and respect for you is written on their smiling faces. You feel good! You are good at this and everybody knows it!
Let me tell you a secret. YOU have the power to choose which of these two videos you play. But, the more you play the negative one, the easier it becomes to let your brain run down this destructive path. By allowing your brain to develop this video, it becomes the easiest pathway to follow. Don't let your mind follow the easy path of a negative scenario, work hard at reporgramming it with a positive one. Remember, it's your choice.
2 Who Are Your Audience?
Always start by asking yourself: who will be at my presentation? What do they want to learn? What do they already know? Why not contact the organiser and ask them all the same questions. This way you will be able to plan a presentation that is in line with their expectations. Otherwise you risk pitching the level of information either too low.Once you have discovered exactly who will attend and what are their personal concerns, fears, worries, needs and desires, you must keep this information clearly in your mind as you plan. Imagine someone typical from the audience. Clearly visualise yourself talking directly to them as you plan what you are going to say.
3 Plan A Summary
Before I started to really write anything today, I simply wrote down the titles of the different parts of this article. The headings of each section were the easiest things to decide. This was just a list of titles at first, then I remembered that I wanted to tell you about the powerful effect of positive visualisation,so I added that to the list. The next step was to think of the order or sequence in which to present them. The first thing that we had to think about, before we did anything else, was to deal with the positive thinking issue. I then planned the order of each of the other parts of my article. Once I was happy with this, it allowed me to simply complete each section in more detail. You will need to do this when you start to plan your presentation.
4 Let PowerPoint help you!
A lot of people have a terrible fear that their brain will go blank. You will be unable to remember what you had planned to say! You must deal with this by using the positive visualistion technique I outlined in the first section, but with PowerPoint you can remove this worry immediately, by using brief sub-titles on each slide to prompt your memory. But be ready for every eventuality! All your mental preparation and careful planning would be wasted if you arrived at the presentation room to find that nobody had prepared the projector! Or, it was present, but wasn't in good working order! Rather than be left in a sweaty mess of panic and, be prepared. Simply print paper hard copies of each of your PowerPoint slides so that you have some back-up if the worst case scenario happens!
5 A clear introduction
Make sure that you begin by introducing yourself, who you work for or represent, saying what are you responsible for and giving some information regarding your personal experience in this area. If you are sure that it will come naturally, make a little joke. Believe me, your audience will be feeling nervous, too and so any excuse for them to laugh out loud will provide THEM with some very welcome relief! But this is no place to try out new jokes! Always make sure that you run any joke past a trusted colleague first...
Also, do you want your audience to interrupt you with any questions they want to put to you, or would you prefer to deal with questions at the end. It's probably best to do the latter:
"If you do have any questions about anything that I talk about today, I would be very happy to answer them at the end of my presentation."
You then need to help your audience to follow your talk by summarising briefly exactly what you are going to be telling them. Like any road journey, help the listener follow the route that you will be following by using "signposting" language to indicate how one section will follow another in a logical sequence:
"First of all, I will tell you about...."
"Next, I want to explain...."
"After that, I will show you..."
"Then, we will see how...."
(You can then repeat: next / after that / then until your final point)
"Finally, I will tell you about..."
Remember, always plan what you are going to say by constantly asking yourself:
"If I were in the audience, could I easily understand and follow that point?"
6 Say it
This is the part of the presentation when you actually give the details behind each section. Again you can help everybody follow where you are leading them by "signposting" the end of one section and the beginning of another:
"OK, so we have looked at the effects of the economy on sales, now I want to move on to tell you about discounting."
"That's all I want to say about the 2008 figures, let's now take a look at what happened in 2009."
"I've told you all about what happens in our head office, but now I want to turn to examing what happens in the transport depot."
7 Tell them what you've said
You want the audience to remember the contents of your presentation so it never hurts to summarise one last time what you have just said:
"So, let me summarise for you: First of all, we saw how the department deals with enquiries, then we looked at how orders are processed, after that....etc"
Then always try to conclude by reminding your audience again who you are and what you can help them with:
"Thanks for your patience and interest everyone. My name's Peter Hayes of inlingua Manchester, helping you to do your job in English!"
8 Practise it all on a friend or colleague in advance of the big day
Once you have written your slides and planned exactly what you are going to say, you now need to find a trusted friend or colleague on which to practise. Ask them to help you by making notes as you present to them under the following headings:
- Did I make it easy to follow? Did I "signpost" the sequence of the different parts of the presentation clearly enough? - Did the presentation give you clear information that you found useful and easy to understand? - Did you feel comfortable watching and lsitening me talk?
- How could I improve the presentation?
- What questions would you like to put when the presentation is over
- Finally, how long does this presentation last?
Finally, remember this. You are in control here. How successful and pleasant the experience of giving a presentation actually is really just depends upon you. Positive visualisation and careful planning and practice will simply lead to a winning presentation. Do you want to be a presentation winner? It's a choice that only you can make! So what are you waiting for? Go win if you want to! Take control and surprise yourself with what you can achieve!
