Oral PresentationOne of the ways that teachers use to involve their students mo

Oral Presentation
    Good morning. Today I want to talk about techniques for oral presentation. Although I am going to talk about presentations, these are equally useful for business talks or any other kind of public speeches.
    In your university work, you will be expected to give oral presentations, in the form of reports or simply in the form of answers to questions. Nowadays, many university teachers try to involve their students more actively in the learning process. (1) One of the ways in which this is done is by conducting seminars. In a seminar, what usually happens is this. One student is chosen to give his ideas on a certain topic. These ideas are then discussed by the other students (the participants) in the seminar.     What I’d like to discuss with you now is the techniques of presenting a paper at a seminar. I am going to give you some advice on how to present a seminar paper. (2) As you know,there are two main stages involved in this. One is the preparation stage which involved researching and writing up a topic. The other stage is the preparation stage when you actually present the paper to your audience. It is the second that I am concerned with now.
    There are two ways in which this can be done.
    The first method is to circulate copies of the paper in advance to all the partic-ipants. This gives them time to read it before the seminar,so that they can come already prepared with their own ideas about what you have written. The second method is where there is no time for previous circulation, or there is some other reason why the paper cannot be circulated. In that case,of course,the paper will have to be read aloud to the group,who will probably make their own notes on it while they are listening.
    In this talk I am going to concentrate on the first method where the paper is circulate in advance, as this is the most efficient way for conducting a seminar, but most of what 1 am going to say also applies to the second method; and indeed may be useful to remember any time you have to speak in public.
    You will probably be expected to introduce your paper even if it has been circulated beforehand. There are two good reasons for this. One is that the participants may have read the paper but forgotten some of the main points. The second reason is that some of the participants may have glanced through it quickly. They will therefore not be in a position to comment on it, unless they get some idea of what it is all about.
    When you are introducing your paper, what you must not do is simply to read the whole paper aloud. This is because;
    Firstly, if the paper is a fairly long one, there may not be enough time for discussion. From your point of view, the discussion is the most important thing. It is very helpful for you if other people criticize your work; in that way you can improve it.
    Secondly, a lot of information can be understood when one is reading. It is not easy to pick up detailed information when one is listening. (5) In other words, there may be lack of comprehension or understanding because speech and writing are different. The biggest difference between spoken and written language is that readers can look back over the printed words when they don’t understand. In spoken language, however, listeners can’t go back and check the words.
    Thirdly, it can be very boring listening to something being read aloud. Anyway, some of your audience may have read your paper carefully and will not thank you for having to go through all of it again.
    So there are several things you must follow to make your oral presentations clear and easy to understand.
    Decide on a time limit for your talk. Tell your audience what it is. Stick to your time limit. This is very important.
    At the seminar, the rate of delivery has to be slower. One of the best ways to help your audience is simple to speak slowly and help the listener’s memory.
    Concentrate only on the main points. Ignore details. Hammer home the essence of your argument. If necessary, find ways of making your basic points so that your audience will be clear about what they are.
    Speak from the outline notes. But bring both sets of notes and your original paper to the meeting. Knowing that you have a full set of notes available will be good for your self-confidence.
    Thinking time should be provided both before and after each important new item. The time before is to provide a background so that the listeners can have a chance to anticipate the idea. The time after is to allow the listeners a chance to understand what they just heard. (9) The three most common ways to allow this thinking time are to pause,to paraphrase and to use filler words, which convey no information,but just fill time. That means the words have no real meaning, but they do perform a useful function since they allow the listener time to think. For instance,you might say something like"as I’ve been saying"or"and so forth and so on".
    Try to make your spoken presentation lively and interesting. This doesn’t necessarily mean telling jokes and anecdotes, but if you can think of interesting or amusing examples to illustrate your argument,use them.
    Look at your audience while you are speaking. The technique to use is this. First read the appropriate parts of your notes silently. If you are using outline notes, this won’t take you long. Then look up at your audience and say what you have to say. Never speak while you are still reading. While you are looking at your audience, try to judge what they are thinking. Are they following you? You will never make contact with your audience if your eyes are fixed on the paper in front of you.
    Make a strong ending. One good way of doing this is to repeat your main points briefly and questions or comments.
    I hope that these suggestions will help to make your oral presentations a great success. That’s all for today’s lecture. Thanks for listening.