☆ Delivery skills
1. Look organized
The audience will have confidence in someone who seems to know what he or she is doing. Arrange your papers on the desk. Check the OHP(over-head projector). Put your bag in a suitable place. Put your notes in a suitable place. Change the seating arrangement if you don’t like it. Check that everyone can see you and your visual aids.
2. Use natural gestures
Don’t try to be a great actor. Rely mainly on the content of your presentation, not on acting skills. Use the same gestures you would use if you were explaining the same thing to a colleague in a one-to-one conversation.
To ensure that you use gestures naturally, avoid clasping your hands behind your back, clasping them in front of you, or placing them on your hips.
If you are holding notes, try to hold them in one hand, leaving your other hand free to make gestures.
3. Eye contact
Look at individual members of your audience, just as if you were having a conversation with them. Don’t bury your head in your notes. Try not to look at the ceiling when you can’t remember what to say.
4. Signaling
In writing, you use paragraphs to show the parts of your presentation. In presentations, you have to do it in other ways. You can use verbal techniques and non-verbal techniques. Verbal techniques involve using a mixture of linking phrases, intonation, and pauses. Non-verbal techniques can include changing positions, turning pages of your notes, and changing the OHP slide.
5. Pronunciation
Make sure you know how to pronounce the words in your presentation. Be particularly careful of words that are used in both your language and English. These words can be false friends.
6. Avoid distractions
A hole in your shirt will get attention, but it will divert attention from what you are saying. So will the following:
· Passing round things for your audience to look at while you are speaking.
· Having a slide displayed on the OHP while you are talking about something else.
