Transcript Tips for Giving Presentations in English

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)
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
What will we talk about today?
• Kind of conference and presentation,
expected presentation behavior
• Preparing the physical presentation
• Hardware and software considerations
• Preparing yourself
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
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?
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
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
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
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
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
• 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?
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
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.
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
• 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.
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
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)
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
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)
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
• 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!
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
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
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
• 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.
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
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
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
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
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
• 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
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
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?
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
• 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)
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
• 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.
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
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.
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
• 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
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
• 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?
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
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
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
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.
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
• 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.
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
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.
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
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.
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006
Slides from this presentation
have been posted at
http://mx.nthu.edu.tw/~katchen
Thank you!
NTHU College of Engineering, January 18, 2006