Presentation Skills for

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Presentation Skills for Scientific English
RTN School on Jets from Young Stars Models and
constraints Villard-de-Lans 9-13 Janvier
2006 Jonathan Upjohn - jonathan.upjohn_at_free.fr
Université Joseph Fourier (Ret.), Grenoble
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1. Presentation skills for Scientific English
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Presentation skills for Scientific English

• My talk today will be concerned with the
  following questions

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• The nature of oral presentations
• Intelligibility
• Redundancy
• Compensation strategies

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• Why communication skills ?
• A Phd is not enough
• Scientists need communication skills for

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• Validation and feedback of their research
• Establishing networks, finding research partners
  funding
• To attain full membership of the scientific
  community

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Todays programme

• We will look at 3 main points
• The nature of the problem
• Priorities
• Tools for action (techniques, suggestions and
  guidelines)

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• The problem is well resumed by Jean Bornarel,
  head of the Physics department at the UJF,
  Grenoble and director of the collection
  Grenoble sciences when he said
• We scientists are fast learners but we are
  desperately short of time. What we want from
  you language teachers is advice tell us what
  we need to learn.

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The nature of oral presentations

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The nature of oral presentations

• The main reason that speakers perform badly is
  not because of linguistic problems. It is
  because of a fundamental misconception as to
  their nature of oral presentations.
• This problem applies just as much to anglophone
  speakers as to those who are not anglophone.

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The nature of oral presentations

• Oral presentation ? written text
• ? discussion
• For example, consider this written text

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(No Transcript)
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• Why is this almost impossible to understand when
  read aloud?
• It is because the lexical density is too high.
• In other words, it requires 30 seconds to read
  but 60 seconds to process.
• Therefore
• Loss of intelligibility

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• When reading alone, it is the reader who controls
  the rate of the information flow by pausing,
  re-reading etc.
• This is not the case when a speaker reads aloud.

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• Oral presentations also differ fundamentally
  from discussions because there is no monitor, no
  feedback from the partner to indicate successful
  comprehension
• e.g. requests for clarification,
  repetition, pausing
• Therefore
• potential danger of forgetting the
  audience, of solopsism i.e. of speaking for
  oneself and not in order to communicate.

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The Danger of solipsism 1

• Solipsism can take several forms. One example
  is found in the following attitude
• It is for the audience to understand me rather
  than for me to make myself understood.

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Danger of solipsism 2

• If you forget that your role is to communicate
  and not just to speak to the audience - you will
  be tempted to use visual aids badly.
• For example, by showing raw data with no more
  indication than The table shows ..

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Selected Objects from Herbig and Bell Catalogue
(1988) - Stars
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• Clearly, there is so much information in a table
  of this sort that it cannot be absorbed rapidly.
• You may know where the important information is
  but the audience does not.

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• An audience needs time or indications in order to
  perceive the relevant data in a graph of this
  sort.
• You have to put yourself in the position of the
  audience - help them see important elements by
  highlighting with colour, by arrows or by
  pointing etc.

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Selected Objects from Herbig and Bell Catalogue
(1988) - Stars
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Selected Objects from Herbig and Bell Catalogue
(1988) - Stars
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• Exactly the same problem is posed when one uses
  complex sides
• As you can see ..

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(No Transcript)
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• You must always indicate where the relevant
  information is - where the audience should look.

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Recommendations concerning presentations

• Never read. (without graphic support)

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Recommendations

• Never read. (without graphic support)
• Keep eye contact to make sure that the audience
  is following.

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Recommendations

• Never read (without graphic support)
• Keep eye contact to make sure that the audience
  is following
• Highlight the location of critical data.

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Recommendations

• Never read (without graphic support)
• Keep eye contact to make sure that the audience
  is following
• Highlight the location of critical data
• Speak slowly pause frequently.

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Language intelligibility

• The next part of the talk examines certain
  linguistic problems confronting non-anglophones.

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• A linguistic deficit
• A communicative deficit

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• The linguistic deficit can be phonological
• Pronunciation
• Word and sentence stress
• Homographs

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(a) Pronunciation

• Remedial action may be necessary in the
  following areas
• Vowels - diphthongs - consonants

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• Today, we have not the time to discuss this
  aspect further.

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b) Word sentence stress

• Stress problems are the most common cause of
  communication breakdown.
• Thus, it is a high priority
• N.B. Particularly important is the stress
  pattern for compound nouns. For example

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• Compound nouns
• POST-shock COOLing zones
• DUST emission DAta analysis

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(c) Fossilised Homographs

• A third problem area is fossilised homographs.
  For example words like
• Jupiter - hydrogen - spectroscopy
• accretion luminosity - gravitational

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• Phonological problems are difficult to eradicate.
  However, they will not disappear by themselves.
• If your communication is handicapped by them,
  you should consider, in terms of your scientific
  career, whether it is worthwhile investing in
  efficient remedial action.

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Phonological problems Recommendations (a)

• 1. Invest in a (minimum 12 weeks) course in
  remedial phonetics. (N.B. General communication
  courses are not appropriate.)

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Phonological problems Recommendations (a)

• 1. Invest in a (12 week) course in remedial
  phonetics. N.B. General communication courses
  are not appropriate.
• Autonomous work using self access material.
• (Cf. Listening Skills in Scientific English
  See bibliography)

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Recommendations (b)

• Ask your laboratory / insitution to provide
  specific language aids for oral communications.
• (Cf. Project Aide à la communication
  J.Hay, UJF. - See bibliography)

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Recommendations (c)

• Ask your laboratory / institution to provide
  specific language aids for oral presentations.
• (Cf. Project Aide à la communication
  J.Hay, UJF. - See bibliography)
• N.B. Remember that during research / internships
  abroad you will not automatically acquire a
  perfect accent. - A course in remedial
  phonetics is advisable.

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Redundancy

• In this section we will consider the notion of
  redundancy.
• As the example below shows, redundancy is a
  fundamental part of human language.

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• Compare these two messages
• 0010110100110
• Zoé will be coming tomorrow.

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• 001010100110
• Zé wll b cmng tmrrw.
• The machine language can no longer be decoded.
  However, the second message remains
  comprehensible despite the suppression of 33 of
  the information.

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• The same thing applies when whole words are
  deleted.
• Zoé coming tomorrow.

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• Redundancy also plays an important role at the
  level of phonology
• Listen to this sentence
• you very much for inviting me - Ill
  be very to come.

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• You heard
• Thank you very much for inviting me - Ill
  be very pleased to come.

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• In fact, I said
• Sank you very much for inviting me - Ill be
  very TLeased to come.

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• Because of your justified expectances, based on
  the probabilities of what I was going to say you
  filtered the sounds that you heard.
• You reconstructed the phonetic information so
  that it made sense.

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The story of Dr Yang

• A further example demonstrates how
  phonological problems can be overcome by
  increasing redundancy.
• In the Korean language there is no phoneme /f/.
• Frequently, Korean speakers replace the /f/ by
  /p/.

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• Dr Yang, a Korean speaker, asked the question,
• pilosopi ? (instead of / filosofi /)
• He was totally incomprehensible.

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• However, if Dr Yang had said,
• Do you teach pilosopi ?
• the listener would have been able to understand
  the question without any problem.

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Conclusions

• This has important implications for non-native
  speakers. It shows that intelligibility can be
  maintained despite linguistic deficit.
• Consequently, speakers should use every
  possible means of increasing redundancy.
• That is to say, they should use
  compensation strategies.

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Compensation strategies

• The problem
• The solution

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The problem

• Linguistic
• deficit
• Loss of
• redundancy
• Communicative breakdown

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• The solution
• Compensation
• strategies
• Increased
• redundancy
• Communicative success

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Linguistic functions

• The next part discusses the notion of linguistic
  functions and their link with redundancy.

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• Linguistic functions are words or groups of
  words that perform a specific linguistic action
  (e.g. greeting, requests for information,
  contradiction etc.)
• ?
• They announce the sort of information
  that will follow, thus increasing redundancy
  and
• intelligibility.

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• Example The function of Clarification,
  exemplification restatement is realised by the
  following sorts of expressions
• In other words That is to say What I
  mean by this To put it simply For example
  For instance e.g. Namely This can be
  illustrated by

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Examples of other functions used in the context
of astrophysics

• Contrast comparison
• Generalisation approximation
• Hypothesis
• Drawing conclusions

• As opposed to coherent
• wave action
• To a certain extent, the
• orientation of field lines
• It can therefore be assumed
• that thermal plasma
• This means to say that
• dynamo self-regulation

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Introducing a presentation an example

• The following example comes from a student in
  information science and shows how a poor
  introduction can be improved by the use of
  linguistic functions
• (adapted from Worman and alia. See Bibliography)

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The L-index - An Indexing Structure for
Efficient Subsequence Matching- __________________
_ THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF INFORMATION
SCIENCE Laboratory for Database and Media
System Name Y. M.
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Revised version

• Good evening, everyone. My name is Y.M., and Im
• member of Laboratory for Database and Media
  System.
• Thank you for coming my presentation.
• My todays presentations title is The L- index.
  The L-
• index is An Indexing Structure for Efficient
  Subsequence
• Matching.
• Please listen to my presentation.

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• Clearly, this is a poor introduction. Notice
  that the problem does not come from the
  grammatical mistakes these are secondary.
• In the next slide we propose an improved version
  of the second part (in blue) by the introduction
  of appropriate linguistic functions.

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Revised version

• Good morning, now,
• the subject of the paper today is The L-
  index,
• that is to say, a type of Indexing Structure for
  Efficient
• Subsequence Matching.
• As you all know, methods must be found for
  processing time sequence data automatically in
  areas such as sea surface temperatures, medical
  data and financial markets due to the fact that
  they can attain several terabytes in size.

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• The improved version has made the text much
  clearer, easier to follow and more authentic.
• ( N.B. The functions used in this case are
• framing, topic, restatement, focussing,
  exemplification, cause .. )

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The importance of functions
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The importance of functions a) for the listener

• Linguistic functions indicate the type of
  information that is being communicated.
  Consequently, they raise the expectancies /
  redundancy for the listener.
• The pre-encoded semantic units are easier to
  recognise and facilitate comprehension.

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The importance of functions b) for the speaker

• Linguistic functions increase the confidence of
  the speaker as they allow him to move through a
  text knowing that what he says is
• - appropriate
• - clear and intelligible
• - perfect English
• The functions are pre-encoded semantic units,
  they can be considered as building blocks or
  islands of security. They consequently reduce
  the speakers stress and improve fluency.

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Collocations

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Collocations

• Collocations are groups of commonly associated
  words which occur with high frequency.
• (N.B. Some, but not all functions are
  collocations.)
• Look at the following example

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• A lot of people acknowledge that there is a big
  range of explanations for clusters of stars

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• There is no grammatical error in this sentence
  however, it is unnatural - it is not good
  English.

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• In the following slide the sentence is
  re-written using the appropriate collocations
  associated with acknowledge, range, cluster.
• (The figure that follows each phrase indicates
  the increased rate of frequency in the field of
  astrophysics.)

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• A lot of people acknowledge that there is a
• big range of explanations for clusters of
  stars.
• It is generally acknowledged ( x 120)
  that there is a wide range (x 500) of
  explanations
• for star clusters. (x 25)

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The importance of collocations a) for the
listener

• Neglect of collocations
• reduced redundancy
• - Increased difficulty for the listener to
  decode the sounds.
• - High neurological load.

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The importance of collocations b) for the
speaker

• Idem
• - Increased difficulty for the
• speaker if he must encode each word one at
  a time.
• - High neurological load stress.
• - ? Fluency.

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Recommendations (a) How to maintain redundancy

• Speakers must attain a total mastery of a wide
  range of basic functions.

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Recommendations (a) How to maintain redundancy

• Speakers must attain a total mastery of a wide
  range of basic functions.
• The should learn and use lexical items in the
  form of collocations and not as isolated words.

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Recommendations (b) Compensate for lost
redundancy by

• Using other strategies for increasing
  redundancy. (e.g. repetition, reformulation,
  examples, pausing, use of hesitation strategies,
  )

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Recommendations (b) Compensate for lost
redundancy by

• Using other strategies for increasing
  redundancy. (e.g. repetition, reformulation,
  examples, pausing, use of hesitation strategies,
  )
• Exploiting visual aids to a maximum as a way of
  increasing redundancy - (display on the slide
  all key words, compound nouns etc.,)

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Technological support

• There is an increasing range of technological
  support available for researchers. An interesting
  example is the Autonomous video-analysis -
  Protocole de développement des compétences orales
  proposed by Josiane Hay, Université Joseph
  Fourier. It consists of
• - IRIS pen Executive
• - Proloquo software
• - VARA - Videocue prompter

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• The IRIS pen Executive allows you to scan the
  text that you propose to present quickly and
  easily.
• The Proloquo software transforms the electronic
  text into speech, thus providing you with a
  phonological model. (N.B. Artificial speech is
  not perfect, but nevertheless, today is of high
  standard)
• The VARA - Videocue prompter then allows you to
  film, monitor and refine your presentation to
  your own satisfaction.

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• To recapitulate . If you are having trouble
  with your presentations in English you should
  make every effort to compensate by increasing
  redundancy.
• This can be done by

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Using faultless Visual aids
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Using faultless Visual aids
Displaying key words and compound nouns on
visual aids
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Using faultless Visual aids
Displaying key words and compound nouns on
visual aids
Massive use of functions
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Using faultless Visual aids
Displaying key words and compound nouns on
visual aids
Frequent repetition and reformulation
Massive use of functions
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Using faultless Visual aids
Displaying key words and compound nouns on
visual aids
Frequent repetition and reformulation
Massive use of functions
Pausing and slowing down
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Using faultless Visual aids
Displaying key words and compound nouns on
visual aids
Frequent repetition and reformulation
Massive use of functions
Self video analysis
Pausing and slowing down
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Using faultless Visual aids
Displaying key words and compound nouns on
visual aids
Frequent repetition and reformulation
Massive use of functions
Self video analysis
Pausing and slowing down
Improving 6 or 7 basic pronunciation errors.
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Bibliography

• Davis, M. (2005). Scientific papers and
  presentations. Elsevier Press, London.
• Dee. A. Worman and alia. (2001). Presenting
  Science. Nara Inst. of Science and Technology,
  Japan. http//webdisk.shinawatra.ac.th/maruf/pboo
  k/pbook.pdf
• Hay, J. (2006) Autonomous video-analysis -
  Protocole de développement des compétences
  orales Josiane.Hay_at_ujf-grenoble.fr
• Upjohn, J. (1995). Listening Comprehension in
  Scientific English. EPD Sciences, Paris.
• Upjohn and alia. (1997). Speaking Skills in
  Scientific English. EPD Sciences, Paris.
• Upjohn and alia. (2003). Minimum Competence in
  Scientific English. (nouvelle édition) EPD
  Sciences, Paris.

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• Thank you