PRESENTATIONS

TWO KEY QUESTIONS FOR ALL PRESENTERS

 WHAT ARE MY OBJECTIVES

 WHO ARE MY AUDIENCE

OBJECTIVES

 Can you write the objective in a single sentence

 Are you trying to
1. Instruct
2. Inform
3. Influence
4. Interact [to get a contribution from the audience]

AUDIENCE

 To be kept in mind throughout preparation and presentation

 Keep in mind the numbers, job titles, education interests, biases and concerns.
 Audience preoccupation
 Audience memory curve
 Clarity of presentation structure and repetition

PREPARATION AND PLANNING

THREE ASPECTS OF THE PRESENTATION

1. THE ENVIRONMENT
2. THE METHOD
3. THE CONTENT

THE ENVIRONMENT

 Fixed factors: [includes room dimension , setup of a.v. aids, etc] Whatever can be
done with these to facilitate the presentation should be dealt with.
 Movable items: [eg: adjust seating arrangements for maximum eyecontact]

THE METHOD
 Organization
 Use of examples
 Clarity
  Language
 Body language
Organization

 Preview: objective and arrangement of ideas is first presented

Eg: I will first examine our performance and then identify 3 alternatives for
further improvement

 Frames: End a point by summarizing what you said and connecting back to
the main objective
Eg: So, having briefly outlined the existent practices of competing
organizations, let us see whether we can formulate an alternative to improve
our performance.

 Links: Between one point and another.

Eg: So as we can see, a 10% reduction in selling price leads to a 25% increase
in demand which brings us to our next area of concern, quality management.

Use of examples

 Offers support evidence

 Enables audience to relate new concepts to their own experience
 Promote clarity and interest

For unfamiliar concepts use the model of

 Rule—example—rule

For familiar concepts use the model of

 Example—Rule or Rule—Example

Clarity

 Defining technical terms and jargon

 Increasing explicit content and decreasing implicit content
 Crisp short sentences
 Avoiding vagueness by presenting actuals rather than approximations or general
adjectives.

Language

 Pitch
 Volume
 Stress
 Pauses
 Correctness
 Pronunciation
Body language

 Dress code
 Eye contact
 Posture
 Movement
 Gestures: Reinforcement of speech. Can be practiced but must come naturally
with the speech

Gestures
 Pointing:
“This argument rests on a single principle”
“I challenge anyone in this audience to refute this fact”
“I believe that this tragedy could have been avoided if the management
had been more vigilant.”
 Clenching a fist:
“ We will go ahead with this project ,no matter what happens”
 Cautioning gesture
“ We have to move forward very carefully”
 Dividing
“ In these days of international tension , we must not, on the one hand be
too radical in our ideas, nor ,on the other hand, be ultra conservative”
 Quoting [ to signify a quotation or a point of significance]

THE CONTENT

Introduction

Three goals:
 To win attention
 To gain goodwill
 To pave the way for the rest of your speech

Examples of different openings

 Direct reference to subject
 Reference to the occasion
 Question
 Startling statement of fact
 Quotation
 Anecdote
 Illustration
 Conclusions

Summing up the points and stressing the main theme

 Challenge or appeal
 Summary
 Quotation
 Illustration
 Inducement

Body

 Give a preview of points immediately after the introduction

 Follow the same order when presenting points
 Structure the speech in logical order with important points first
 Support each point with examples and details.

Respected …..
Introduction

Direct reference to subject

Reference to the occasion
It’s a pleasure to stand before you to speak on a topic that is very close to my heart and,
at the outset I would like to express my gratitude to the organizers for giving me this
opportunity. Communication skills is a widely discussed and debated topic these days
and there are any number of opinions on the importance of aspects like pronunciation and
grammar in communication. In fact there is a popular opinion that these aspects don’t
matter as long as one is able to make the other person understand your idea. Preview
Today I would like to clarify some of these issues at a macro level and then go into the
finer details of how this connects to the English teaching program at primary level.

Use of examples Example—Rule or Rule—Example

When we meet someone for the first time, we form our initial impressions from the
clothes and manners of the person. When the person starts to speak we tend to make a
deeper assessment of the person. Communication skills are acquired over a period of
time and so we can make a reliable assessment of a person’s cultural background, the
schooling and education from the pronunciation, accentand tone of speech. audience As
parents of children belonging to the primary section of Christu Jayanthi I am sure that it
is important for each one of you that your children acquire the speech habits that will set
them apart from others

Links However there is a much more compelling reason that makes it absolutely
necessary to acquire these skills. Let me take you back for a moment to the time when
you all went to primary school. Our parents sent us to the nearest school that would
provide us with a decent education. A secure job preferably within the boundaries of
Kerala was a parents ultimate dream for the child and the neighborhood school served
that purpose well. We all know that the world has literally undergone a silent revolution
in terms of globalization and information technology. For our parents, the world was
Kerala but now the world has come to Kerala. We have the top MNCs coming for
campus interviews to Rajagiri Engineering college and management school.audience
Enables audience to relate new concepts to their own experience They stress on one
important skill in the candidate ie good communication skills

Let us look at the industries that are rapidly growing. India is right in the midst of the IT
and ITeS boom.. Kerala has been ranked 2nd by the National Association Software and
Services Companies in terms of connectivity and availability if educated human resource.
[NASSCOM] estimates that the Indian ITeS market will top over $ 6 billion by the
year 2006 with 3 lakh jobs on offer in the next 3years. My qualification to speak on the
subject In this connection I would like to share my experiences on a project I had done
along with two of my collegues from RSOM. Kerala State IT Mission wanted to create a
human resource pool for the ITes industry who wanted to start operations in Infopark.
The candidates had to be graduates with good communication skills.We took up the
project and gave a test and interview to 2500 graduates from colleges in and around
Kochi. Eventually we shortlisted 1000 candidates but hardly 200 graduates were found
suitable by the ITES company trainers. Avoiding vagueness by presenting actuals
rather than approximations or general adjectives.

Communication skills were the only barrier. This is the situation that we face today
but we have to change this situation for our children tomorrow. Forward thinking
institutions like Rajagiri have realized this and are taking great pains to see that your
children grow up speaking English with the right pronunciation and grammar because
their future in this globalized world depends on this.

Frames Having established the importance of communication let us look into the
details of how your children are being oriented at the primary level. A lot of research
has gone into the teaching of English pronunciation mainly because, as we all know,
many English words are not pronounced according to their spelling. While we say a
for apple we also say a for all. In our times we learned the alphabet as a,b,c etc but
now the new method where the children say a,b,k, is aimed to reduce the confusion
between the pronunciation of the spelling and the pronunciation of the word. It makes
it much easier for the child to say k for cat rather than c for cat. Even within the
alphabet the children are not taught in the usual order of letters. The alphabets k o a
are taught first so that the child finds it easier to grasp the pronunciation. At the next
stage , when the child starts learning spelling the word ‘cat’ is taught as k at cat .
The advantage of this is to enable the child to associate spelling with pronunciation.

These latest techniques in language training are being applied in the kindergarten and
with these efforts , your children will develop their communication skills much
better . But here there is one important condition… You have to be able to follow the
same system as the school follows when you help your children with their work. If
you teach them in the old system there will be even greater confusion in the child’s
mind . It is of vital importance that you cooperate with the school to achieve the best
results for your child
Challenge or appealSo let us plan together for your children’s future, keeping in
mind the changing environment . Let us support the efforts of the teachers and
facilitate the children’s development thus preparing them to face the world with
confidence