Complete Guide to English Presentation Skills: Relaxation, Posture, Pace, and Intonation to Enhance Your Performance

As you saw in the videos, your words are important, of course, but how you say them may be even more important. Let's talk about some of the things that can make your presentation successful. First, how do you feel about giving presentations? If you're like most people, it makes you nervous. Being nervous is completely normal, but you don't want to be so nervous that you can't deliver your speech. So here are some ways you can control your nerves and appear more relaxed. The most important thing is to prepare well and practice. A common problem is that people are still figuring out what to say right before their talk. So plan well ahead of time, so you have at least a few days to practice your presentation. Before your speech, calm your nerves with some breathing techniques. I'm not an expert on this, but the trick is to exhale for longer than you inhale. Here's an example. Breathe out. Now breathe in for a count of four, then hold it for, say, two, and then breathe out for six. Hold for two and breathe in again. The counting isn't so important. It's the idea that you breathe out for longer than you breathe in, and that should help you relax.

Next is posture, the way you stand. Did you notice the difference in the speaker's posture in the two videos? Standing tall and looking at the audience makes you appear confident. And you know the podium, the high table that the speaker was behind? I hate having to stand behind one of those. I want to be as close to my audience as possible when I give a talk. Although this is something that might be different in different cultures, if you can, move out from behind the podium. But don't move around too much. Don't move around like this. Keep your lower body still as much as possible. What about your hands? The way you use your hands will depend on what's appropriate for your culture, your situation, and also your personality. But my advice is to be natural, but not too informal. For example, don't stand with your hands in your pockets or on your hips. If you normally use your hands a lot, that's probably fine. But you might ask a friend if you do anything that's distracting when you're nervous. Sometimes you do things you're not aware of. Of course, don't wear noisy bracelets or jingle your keys in your pocket while you talk.

My first point seems very obvious. Face the audience, not the screen. But it's surprising how many times people forget to face the audience. They face the screen. I tell my students to make sure their feet are facing the audience. And if they need to look at the screen to go like this. Not like this. The other thing related to eye contact is do not read a script. Reading from a script is a sure way to ruin your presentation. Seriously, don't do it. Use notes with key words or bullet points. Or memorize and practice enough that you know what to say. When I give presentations at conferences before the talk begins, I always walk around a bit chatting with people in the audience. Then, when I start to speak, I have some friendly faces to look at. So that's another suggestion. Find a few people, a few friendly people to look at.

Next, let's talk about using your voice effectively. Some people think that they can't talk loudly. Other people talk too loudly. You don't have to yell, just talk to the person in the back of the room. Project your voice. Next, tempo. How fast or slow you speak. Don't speak too quickly. The average speed for a presentation is 150 words per minute. Try timing yourself with a script and see if you speak at the right speed. Last and most important is emphasis. Listen to these sentences spoken two ways. The important thing is this. A convention will bring thousands of people to our city. The important thing is this. A convention will bring thousands of people to our city. The second time through was more effective, wasn't it? The speaker used several important techniques here. Chunking, stress, and pauses. The important thing is a chunk. A group of words that you say is one phrase. Notice this. Notice the emphasis or stress on the word this. And then a pause. A break in the speech before the main point. And notice the stress on the key words. Writing this kind of a script for any speech you give can be very helpful. Think about your main points and then work on those parts of your speech. Mark the chunks and mark the important words to stress. Pause before and after the main point. And as I said earlier, practice it until you feel like it comes naturally and don't need a script. When you stress a word, it's a little bit louder with a different pitch. And the vowel sounds will be clearer and a little longer. Listen once to the examples.

Could you pass me the marker please? This black one? No, the blue one. This meeting went well. Our last meeting was terrible. We spent hours talking about one issue. Did you figure it out? Yes, we finally came up with a solution. Notice that the stressed words are content words. Now listen again and speak along with them. Imitate the pauses, chunks, and word stress. Could you pass me the marker please? This black one? No, the blue one. This meeting went well. Our last meeting was terrible. We spent hours talking about one issue. Did you figure it out? Yes, we finally came up with a solution. One last point is rising and falling intonation. You'll sound more confident and sure of yourself if you use falling intonation at the end of the sentences in your speech. Listen to the differences in the way these sentences are spoken. It's a very important point. You can make a difference. It's a very important point. You can make a difference. The first one sounds a bit like a question. The second one sounds like a definite true fact. This speech pattern using rising intonation at the end of any sentence is sometimes called uptock. It's a common pattern among younger people in the US, Australia, and Britain. Uptock is also a common intonation pattern in different languages. So say you're from a Scandinavian country like Norway. You might speak English with rising intonation because that's the intonation pattern in Norwegian. Just keep in mind that if it makes you sound tentative, like you're not sure, like you're asking someone to agree with you, I can't speak this way because I don't normally do it. Do it. So when you want to make a point, use falling intonation. It's important. Don't forget.