NTHU College of Engineering

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Tips for Giving Presentations in English

• Johanna E. Katchen (???)National Tsing Hua
  University
• (?????????)katchen_at_mx.nthu.edu.tw
• http//mx.nthu.edu.tw/katchen/

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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)

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What will we talk about today?

• Kind of conference and presentation, expected
  presentation behavior
• Preparing the physical presentation
• Hardware and software considerations
• Preparing yourself

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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?

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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

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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

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• 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?

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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.

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• 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.

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Power Point Considerations

• Many fields use Power Point for presentations now
  except for some traditional ones where people are
  computer-phobic
• You can still readeither from the main points on
  the screen (confident in English) or word-by-word
  notes you make for yourself (not so confident)

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Use of Language

• Put up main points, not details
• Dont write full sentences if you dont have to
  KISS PrincipleKeep It Simple, Stupid!
• Use mostly content wordsnouns, verbs, adjectives
• Keep the structures parallel on the same slide
  (notice Ive started with verbs on this one)

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• If youre worried about your grammar, then using
  content words is useful for you
• If your pronunciation isnt 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!

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FormattingFont Size

• Can the audience read your slides? The default
  32 point is set for a reason. Dont 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

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• This example cannot be read by your audience!
  Its too small and theres 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 universitys 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.

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FormattingFont Style

• Power Points default is Arial
• Arial is sans serifwithout the little feet
• Sans serif is good for headlines, titles, calling
  attention
• Serif has the little feet its good for long
  pieces of text like novels and journal articles
• This is Times New Roman, a common serif font

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FormattingSlide Design

• Power Point provides many styles dont 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

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• Dont put too much material on one slide
• Dont put material too close to the bottom of the
  slideviewers 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

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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 Taiwanincluding the USA.
  Will the computer support USB2? Does it have
  Windows XP or an older OS?

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• 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 (Ive had no trouble in
  Russia, Thailand, USA with Sony/Acer, but did at
  Yuanpei with my new Acer)

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• 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.

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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 whats new and significant.
• They can read the details in the full paper,
  appendices, on your website.

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• 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

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• 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?

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What Should I Wear?

• Young menat 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 its
  always safer to be dressed well than to be
  considered sloppy
• A little more complex for women

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Practice, Practice, Practice

• Youve prepared your content, written out your
  notes, and formatted your slides. Now you have
  to practice.
• Say your talk aloud and time itmodify
  accordingly.
• Give your talk to some trusted colleagues and ask
  them to criticize and to ask hard questions.

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• 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 dont like.
  Videotape a second time to see whether you have
  improved.
• Dont worry about gestures. More practice leads
  to more confidence leads to more natural gestures.

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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. Dont mumble.
• Dont stand in front of the screen.
• Use a pointer.

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Many native speakers of a language give poor
presentations.Many nonnative speakers give
excellent presentations.

• You cant improve language skills rapidly, but
  you can improve presentation skills with practice.

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

• Thank you!