Tips for Giving Presentations in English

NTHU College of EngineeringJanuary 18, 2006

Tips for Giving Presentations in English

Johanna E. Katchen (柯安娜 )National Tsing Hua University

(國立清華大學外語系 )[email protected]

http://mx.nthu.edu.tw/~katchen/

NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006

Who Am I?

• At NTHU for 20 years• Taught public speaking course (Oral

Practice II) for 17 years, wrote a textbook for it

• Have given many presentations at international conferences over Asia and Europe (e.g., Thailand, Russia, France, Brazil)


What will we talk about today?

• Kind of conference and presentation, expected presentation behavior

• Preparing the physical presentation• Hardware and software considerations• Preparing yourself


Observe Others• Attend conferences as a participant to

learn about developments in your field• Also observe and analyze how other

people give papers• If there is a time slot when none of the

topics is of interest to you, go and observe HOW

• Did you see a good presentation? What made it good? What made a bad one bad? How could it be improved?


Kinds of Presentations• Learn about the different kinds of

presentations• First-time presenters may give posters or

joint papers with their professors; your professor can guide you and field hard questions from the audience

• Plenary speakers and colloquia speakers are usually more famous ones


Kinds of Speaking Opportunities

• Learn about the conference/event• Some conferences may be more formal

than others• Some may expect a different type of

presentation or demonstration• Explaining your research to colleagues

and students at another university is not the same as giving a conference paper

• Teaching a class is different


• How much time do you have to speak?• If you are part of a group, what is the

order, the transitions?• Who are your audience? How much do

they know about what you are talking about? How much background do you have to give them?


To Read or Not To Read?• Are you going to read your paper

word by word? THIS IS BORING!

• Why do you want to read? Because you are afraid you will get lost in English.

• In some fields, reading the paper is the custom, in others reading is forbidden.


• Will the people attending your talk have your word-by-word paper in their hands?

• Is it on paper or CD? (read along while you talk or later?)

• So why should they bother to come and hear you mumble? Why not stay home and read it at their leisure? If they have questions they can send you an e-mail.


Power Point Considerations• Many fields use Power Point for

presentations now except for some traditional ones where people are computer-phobic

• You can still read—either from the main points on the screen (confident in English) or word-by-word notes you make for yourself (not so confident)


Use of Language• Put up main points, not details• Don’t write full sentences if you don’t have

to; KISS Principle—Keep It Simple, Stupid!• Use mostly content words—nouns, verbs,

adjectives• Keep the structures parallel on the same

slide (notice I’ve started with verbs on this one)


• If you’re worried about your grammar, then using content words is useful for you

• If your pronunciation isn’t clear, then you can point to key words on the screen as you say them, and your audience will understand you

• Your audience may be mostly nonnative speakers!


Formatting—Font Size• Can the audience read your slides?

The default 32 point is set for a reason. Don’t go below 28 point. 28 point will probably be legible from the back of the room.

• This is 24 point• This is 20 point• This is 18 point


• This example cannot be read by your audience! It’s too small and there’s too much text

• Linguistics, EFL, and e-Learning: Bringing Them Together• Teaching linguistics in EFL contexts presents specific challenges. Students are

required to learn new content in a language they do not fully master. Thus they may face difficulties with content and language at the same time and may find the content opaque due to inadequate language skills. E-learning may provide a means to reinforce students’ learning by providing review materials in a somewhat different format from the in-class lecture.

• This paper focuses on the delivery of three linguistics courses taught in English for Chinese students majoring in English at a Taiwan university. Introduction to English is a required course in the first semester with 60 – 70 students. Students receive three hours of face-to-face lectures each week, delivered in English by a native speaker, but they review material and take practice quizzes on-line using the university’s e-learning platform. History of the English Language is required for a linguistics concentration; while its diachronic nature necessitates more written materials, audio and video files are available on-line for review. Varieties of English is elective, and audio and video clips of English as it is spoken worldwide form the bulk of the teaching materials.

• The purpose of this session is to illustrate how ordinary teachers can go beyond the presentation of text and develop more exciting on-line materials to bolster students’ motivation for learning linguistic content. The presenter will also discuss the feedback collected from students at the end of each course in the form of questionnaires.


Formatting—Font Style• Power Point’s default is Arial• Arial is sans serif—without the little feet• Sans serif is good for headlines, titles,

calling attention• Serif has the little feet; it’s good for long

pieces of text like novels and journal articles

• This is Times New Roman, a common serif font


Formatting—Slide Design• Power Point provides many styles; don’t

use one that is too busy, that interferes with your content, that distracts the audience

• Use dark print on light background or light print on a dark background

• If you have charts and graphs, dark on a light background is probably better for the audience


• Don’t put too much material on one slide• Don’t put material too close to the bottom

of the slide—viewers in the back may have trouble seeing it over other heads

• Will you include any clip art? Is it appropriate for the level of formality of the conference?

• For timing, consider roughly 1 – 2 minutes per slide


Flash Disk or Notebook?• Within Taiwan, flash disk is probably

okay• Make sure any embedded files are in

the same folder on your disk• Other countries are not as advanced

technologically as Taiwan—including the USA. Will the computer support USB2? Does it have Windows XP or an older OS?


• Will you panic if all the Power Point commands are in English?

• What kind of software are you using? If it is not too common, better take your own notebook

• Most recent LCD projectors are compatible with most notebook brands (I’ve had no trouble in Russia, Thailand, USA with Sony/Acer, but did at Yuanpei with my new Acer)


• NOTE: While your notebook adaptor can handle any type of electrical current, the shape of the plug is different in other countries. USA is the same as Taiwan, but Europe and even Southeast Asia are different. Find out about the electricity and plug shape, buy this cheap device and be prepared.

• To look professional, invest in a mouse pointer.


Content and Organization• When you spend the whole day at a

conference, how much do you remember at the end of the day?

• You are the master of your own content, but how much will you present? Again, keep it simple, give them what’s new and significant.

• They can read the details in the full paper, appendices, on your website.


• While each field and conference has its preferences, think generally IMRD

• In your introduction, frame your problem as it relates to previous and ongoing research; cite only directly relevant previous research

• Give important points of your research procedure/methodology

• Give only the relevant results• Tell in the discussion section what the

results mean and draw conclusions


• TO SUMMARIZE IMRD—• What is the question and why did I

bother about it?• What did I do?• What did I find?• What does it mean?• Where do we go from here?


What Should I Wear?• Young men—at least a button-down shirt

tucked into your trousers• Different conferences have different

levels of formality• Will there be other events? cocktail

party? banquet? job interview?• Take your suit jacket and tie just in case;

it’s always safer to be dressed well than to be considered sloppy

• A little more complex for women


Practice, Practice, Practice

• You’ve prepared your content, written out your notes, and formatted your slides. Now you have to practice.

• Say your talk aloud and time it—modify accordingly.

• Give your talk to some trusted colleagues and ask them to criticize and to ask hard questions.


• Give your talk in a room with the computer/projector set up and have a colleague videotape you.

• Watch the video and change what you don’t like. Videotape a second time to see whether you have improved.

• Don’t worry about gestures. More practice leads to more confidence leads to more natural gestures.


During the Talk• Try to remain calm. It will be over after a few

minutes and you will still be alive. No one will throw eggs or tomatoes at you, though they may throw some hard questions.

• Try to look in the direction of the audience at least some of the time.

• Speak clearly and confidently. Don’t mumble. • Don’t stand in front of the screen.• Use a pointer.


Many native speakers of a language give poor presentations.

Many nonnative speakers give excellent presentations.

• You can’t improve language skills rapidly, but you can improve presentation skills with practice.


Slides from this presentation have been posted at http://mx.nthu.edu.tw/~katchen

Thank you!

Documents

Tips for Giving Presentations in English