presentation on presentations penny ur etai, 2010

Presentation on presentations

Penny Ur

ETAI, 2010

This session

• Characteristics of good/bad presentations and some general conclusions

• Using PowerPoint

• A selection of practical tips

A. ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ presentations

A. What makes for 'good' or 'bad' presentations?

Think of two presentations at an ETAI conference that you have attended: one really good one, and one awful one.

Share your experiences with the group: be as specific as you can.

1. Good presentations

• Interacting with the audience

• Smooth transition

• ‘Advance organiser’

• not too long

• not too many words

• has humour

Bad presentations

• She read out everything

• she didn’t have enough material to fill the time

• unprepared

• slides too crowded, masses of writing

•

•

Conclusions: what have we learnt?

B. Practical tips

1. Preparing

• Write detailed notes (although you probably won't be able to refer to them in the session).

• Rehearse and time yourself

• Prepare a handout for participants as well as powerpoint.

2. On the day, before the session

• Check you know exactly when and where

• Check out the room and equipment

3. At the beginning of the session

• Get set up in time (but you'll probably have to wait)

• Have the title up on the screen

• Have handouts ready

4. The session itself: genre

• If mainly lecture – include 'workshoppy' bits

• If mainly workshop – include 'lectury' bits

The session itself: organization

• At the beginning tell people what you're going to be discussion, and how it's going to be organized

• Then do what you said you'd do!

• Then summarize (or get participants to do so)

The session itself: timing

• Keep an eye on your watch, finish on time.

• Think in advance about what you'll cut if you run out of time (or vice versa…)

The session itself: communicating

• Keep eye contact with the audience

• Tell the audience in advance if you want to be interrupted or if they should keep questions to the end

• If the latter – then make sure you leave time.

• Respect the questioner, even if the question is silly!

5. Ending

• On time (or before)!

• Rehearse a 'punchline' or final sentence

• Thank the audience and provide your email address

P.S. speaking personally

• ETAI audiences are incredibly warm and supportive!

• It's very difficult to tell how well it went, you need feedback (so…!)

• Resist the temptation to tell them everything you know…

• Remember to smile occasionally

• Resist the temptation to pace up and down

Summarizing:

• Which tip(s) will you particularly remember?

Thank you for listening and participating!

pennyur@gmail.com