Skills - Speaking - Oral Presentations

Tips for Oral Presentations

Giving an oral presentation is good practice in life! It can be useful for school, work, and social life. The first thing you need to be aware of is YOUR AUDIENCE. Don't feel intimidated - just think you need to get your ideas across. You should choose contents you are interested in. Brainstorm lots so you have ideas to choose from. Brainstorm also on the ways you could combine your speaking with activities or things or other activities which could make your presentation more effective and entertaining for the audience. Then select and order your ideas. Don't write down all your speech. An outline will do. Remember you cannot read your piece. You need to SPEAK.

Oral Presentations by Students + List of OPs (merge!!!)

I am going to copy some useful hints from a textbook, Inside Out, Level V, by Ceri Jones and Tania Bastow (used in Year 4, 2004-2005). Printer-friendly version (1 page) prepared by Ana Otto

Giving a presentation

Your teacher's comments to simplify or expand former

Give your listeners a brief outline of your presentation at the beginning so they know what your main points will be. Make brief notes on each section. Have the notes for each section on separate cards in front of you. Don't try and read your presentation -- use the notes to remind you about the main points only. Don't rush. Pause to think and gather your thoughts if you need to. Let your listeners know ehn you're moving on to a new point. Explain that you will be allowing time for questions at the end (either at the end of each main point, or at the end of the whole presentation) so that you don't have to deal with interruptions. Use the "playing for time" phrases from the toolbox if someone asks you a difficult question.

or how long you are planning to speak, the structure of your presentation (your points, time for this or that). More ideas... FIRST: BOOK A DATE!!! Use humor, if needed. You can bring copies to give out to the audience, with the schema of your presentation and/or some vocabulary and expressions, so that they can follow you. You could also add some exercises (a listening activity, a comprehension exercise!!! Check out "Make Your Classmates Suffer!"). You can use the VCR, the DVD player, the cassette player, too. Remember we could publish your activity here, in "Make Your Classmates Suffer!" and the appropriate section (e.g. Oral presentations). Oral presentations by students at Your Stuff! - Your Activities

Language toolbox

Easier alternatives...

Structuring your presentation First of all we'll look at... Then I'll move on to... Now I'd like to present ... Now I'd like to explain ... To round up I'll ... Playing for time Now that's a very interesting question ... I'm glad you brought that point up... I'm glad you asked me that ... Reporting on your discussion There was some disagreement as regards... We were pretty much in agreement as far as ... was concerned. We found it difficult to imagine ... We reckoned that ... One thing we felt sure about was ... On reflection we agreed that ...

Structuring your presentation I'm going to speak about ... First, I'll (do whatever) ... and then I'll move onto (whatever other topic) ... and I'll finish with ... Playing for time I see. That's an interesting question. Let me think... What I can say is ... Could anybody answer that?! Thanks! Checking the communicative process is going on OK Is this clear? Do you follow me? Can you understand me? Would you like me to speak more slowly? Do you have any questions? / Have you got any questions or comments? Involving your audience What do you think about this? Has this ever happened to you before? Now, Filomeno/a, could you please read from line ...? I need some help with this. Are there any volunteers?

More Useful Notes on Public Speaking

Listen to this audiovisual animated film on Public Speaking It's great!