Выступления, презентации и доклады на английском языке. Учебное пособие

МИНИСТЕРСТВО ТРАНСПОРТА РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ МОСКОВСКАЯ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННАЯ АКАДЕМИЯ

ВОДНОГО ТРАНСПОРТА

Гаранин С.Н.

ВЫСТУПЛЕНИЯ, ПРЕЗЕНТАЦИИ И

ДОКЛАДЫ

НА АНГЛИЙСКОМ ЯЗЫКЕ

Учебное пособие

Альтаир–МГАВТ Москва

2015

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Contents

I.Your audience……………………………………………………..4

II.Your goal…………………………………………………………..4

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PREPARING A PRESENTATION

I.Your audience

The first and most important step in preparing a presentation is to clearly identify your target audience.

Define your audience by asking these questions:

Who precisely am I talking to?

What has our past relationship been like?

What are their attitudes to the topic that I'm going to talk about?

When it comes to my topic, what's in it for them?

This analysis allows you to make your presentation specifically relevant to your audience.

II.Your goal

Next you need to work out what the presentation is to achieve. Define what you want to achieve by asking:

When I have finished speaking, what do I want my audience thinking, saying or doing?

How does that differ from their position when I start?

Defining your audience and your communication goal is more important than any other step in the preparation process. If you get this wrong, you will not be effective, even if you get everything else right.

At this stage, put your "antennae" up.

In the days or weeks before the presentation, keep an eye out for information relevant to the talk. Know what's being said on the grapevine (rumors).

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This is not to suggest that you bury yourself in very detailed research. Just hold onto information you come across in newspapers, magazines, radio and TV, etc. that you think could be useful to your talk.

Once these steps have been carried out you need to address the presentation itself — first its structure and then the content.

III.The structure of your presentation

 Block out the Presentation

List the main points that you wish to make. If there are more than three or four you have two options. You cut out the least important points. Or you can bunch the points into clusters. So you end up with no more than three or four key points - the number that an audience can comfortably absorb.

 Sequence the Blocks

Put the key points along with an introduction and a conclusion in a logical order. The flow of ideas must form a coherent story. Taken together the sequence of points must help the audience move, from their initial position to where you want them to be.

 Expand Each Point

Assemble the information relating to each key point: specific details, examples, supporting data. Use specific detail rather than generalities. Also, use examples and illustrations in the expansion of the key points. This use of specific details and graphic examples will make your points both understandable and memorable.

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 Do Focused Research

At this point any gaps in your information will be apparent. This can be addressed through focused research. Don't get sidetracked into dragging irrelevancies into the talk. The important thing is to keep the research focused on information needed to enhance the audiences understanding of the key points — rather than showing how clever you are.

 Write Out the Blocks

Write out totally each key point. Write in the spoken word, not the written word. Your goal here is to clarify your thinking, not write an essay. Write out each block separately. Clarifying the key points separately in your own mind helps you to communicate them as separate points to your audience.

IV. The rehearsal

 Read and Review the Blocks – Separately

This process of reading and reviewing will help you to actively rehearse your material so that you become very familiar with it. Dealing with the key points in random order will allow you to remember each one as an independent chunk of information and you will lessen the chances of your learning it "off by heart".

 Link the Blocks

Link the blocks together in a way which shows that one follows logically from the next but which keeps the blocks distinct in the audience's mind. Avoid subtle links that allow the blocks to merge together.

Finally make up your props and notes.

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V.Visuals, Props and Notes. Body language.

Visuals and props

Review the storyline of the presentation and ask:

Is there any point in this presentation where a slide or other visual or prop would help the audience to understand my message better? While devising visuals, use shapes or pictures rather than words. Use tables and numbers only where absolutely necessary.

Notes

Use a felt pen and large print. Your notes should include key "trigger" words. Good trigger words are concrete, specific and graphic. They bring to mind a picture that allows you to remember the majority of the information in that block or chunk of information. "Red dress" or "bulls eye" are good key words. Poor key words would be "apparel" or "horticultural difficulties".

Rehearse with notes and props.

The guidelines so far showed you how to prepare what you want to say. You can also prepare for using visuals and props, managing distractions, dealing with nervousness and handling questions.

USING PROPS VISUALS AND NOTES

Props

Props, brochures, forms or explanatory written material should complement what you say, not compete with it. So keep props out of sight until you are using them. Use them. Then put them away. If you want to give everyone in the audience written material, wait until your presentation has ended.

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Visuals

Don't compete with your visuals.

The rules for showing a visual are:

Tie it up

Put it up.

Let the audience absorb it.

Add value by pointing out the interesting features of the slide, prop or visual.

Before you introduce a visual or prop, the audience is focused on you. Your role is that of presenter. After teeing up a visual, show it. The audience is now focused on the screen and your role has changed. Allow time for the information to be absorbed. Then, in the role of commentator, point out the interesting features of the visual. Remove the visual and resume the role of presenter, the focus of the audience's attention.

Notes

Use them openly. Refer to them to help you remember the next point you want to make. Then make your point. Don't steal sly glances at your notes or try to hide them. This will distract the audience. Notes are not there to inspire the composition of a good talk but rather to trigger off the results of good preparation.

Body Language

If you focus on getting your prepared points across, most of the time your body language will be OK. Your body will talk for itself.

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VI. Distractions, Nerves, Mistakes

Managing Outside Distractions

An ambulance siren. A latecomer. A faulty microphone or slide projector. These can all be distractions. Never compete with a distraction, acknowledge it, externalize it. It is more distracting to try to soldier through, than it is to acknowledge the problem.

Nerves

Make Adrenalin Work For You.

Adrenalin brings a presentation to life. It helps you to communicate with greater impact.

If you have prepared using the guidelines here; if you focus outwards to help your audience understand what you want to say; and if you have some adrenalin running - you will communicate effectively and with impact.

However, if you focus inwards and begin a self-critical dialogue while your adrenalin is running, you will hit problems. You may go blank.

Dividing your attention between the audience and an inner selfcritical dialogue means you will make mistakes. You will then devote more attention to self-criticism and less to communicating with your audience, and then make more mistakes. This vicious cycle can increase to a level where overload occurs. Your mind becomes too full. This overloading may make it difficult to remember what you want to say, it may cause blanking.

Blanking occurs when the mind is full and overloaded. Not when it is empty. To avoid blanking: Prepare well. Focus outwards. Externalize all mistakes.

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Mistakes

If you make mistakes or forget things, don't get distracted by selfevaluation. Acknowledge the mistake to the audience and correct it. If you can't think of a word, ask the audience for it. If you can't remember the next point, overtly refer to your notes. If you admit your error, you will put the audience at their ease. If you try to conceal errors, the audience will become distracted or embarrassed for you. You will pick this up and start that self-critical - and distracting - inner dialogue.

Changing the Pace of Ideas not the Pace of Speech

If adrenalin speeds up your speech don't worry about speaking more slowly. It is the pace of ideas, not the rate of speech, that matters for effective communication. You can reduce the pace of ideas by increasing your use of examples.

VII. QUESTIONS

Anticipating Questions

If you are going to take questions after your talk, try to anticipate what your audience will want to ask. List these issues, and the key points you want to include in your answers. Then decide how you want to make each of these points through reference to specific concrete examples. Prepare these answers in the same way that you prepared the key points of your talk.

Stimulating Audience Reaction

If your presentation has been relevant to the audience and if you have predicted flow-out questions accurately, you may not need to stimulate further interaction. But if you do, this is how to go about it.

Summarize the key issues in your presentation and ask the audience specific questions, like 'Have you come across examples of this in your situation? Tell me these examples and how they were handled?'

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