Techniques for Opening English Presentations and Engaging Your Audience

Here are some guidelines for giving a presentation that I've heard many times, and maybe you have too. First, tell people what you're planning to say. Say it. Then tell them what you've told them. Basically, the introduction, the body, and the conclusion of your talk. Okay, so that's the basic idea, but it sounds kind of boring, doesn't it? It does make a point. The introduction and conclusion are important. Another common set of guidelines for presentations is A, B, C, D. A means get people's attention. B stands for benefit. What benefit will the audience get from listening to your talk? C is credibility. Credibility means you're well-qualified, and the audience can feel confident that you know what you're talking about. They can believe what you say. And last, D stands for direction. What direction are you going in your talk? What's your plan or your agenda?

Signal that you're ready to begin. Remember what I said earlier about voice? Here's where you begin. Use a strong voice with falling intonation that carries to the back of the room. Greet the audience and then pause. For example, good morning, or good afternoon. Then, after your pause, introduce yourself if they don't already know you and frame your topic by also mentioning how your talk will benefit the audience. For example, today I'm going to be talking about ways to shorten the planning process. Or maybe, in this presentation, we're going to show you how you can simplify your planning process.

Agreeing gets people's attention, but it doesn't convince them to continue to pay attention. In the first ten seconds of your presentation, you need to do one very important thing. Motivate your audience to listen to you. You need a hook, something that catches the audience's attention. So let's say you're giving a talk to a group of investors about your idea for a new alarm clock. Let's call it alarm magic. What kind of hook could you use to interest your audience? The first possibility is to ask a question. So here's one. Have you ever heard of alarm magic? Everyone shakes their head. No. So was that a good question? No. Why not? Because it's not engaging. It doesn't involve any emotional response in the audience.

Okay, let's try another one. What's the most difficult part of your morning routine? This one's better, right? It's personal. Something that each person in your audience can probably relate to. The problem is that everyone would have a different answer, so there'd be lots of talking. You'd basically lose control of the group in the first five seconds. So let's try again. How many of you like waking up in the morning to the sound of an alarm? This question asks people about their experience, but it's very easy for people to answer. Another way to phrase this question is, raise your hands if you've ever slept through an alarm. These questions get the audience involved, but don't take a lot of time. And when you ask the question, don't answer it yourself too quickly. Pause for the audience to respond.

Some people use imagined questions with what if to show the audience how the presentation could benefit them. But in my opinion, these often fall flat, because the audience doesn't have to respond. The second kind of hook is to tell an interesting story. For the alarm clock example, the story might be about someone who needed seven different alarm clocks, or someone who missed something really important like their wedding or something. Just like a good question, a good story should draw the listeners in, either because it's funny or maybe sad, but in any case meaningful. When you're giving an informative presentation, a good story is often one that deals with a pain point the audience can relate to, like a problem that they all share.

It could also be an experience that you've had. The experience can have two purposes. One is to show a problem or pain point that you've experienced, and the other is to establish your credibility, that is something that shows you're qualified to talk about this subject. Sometimes people think that the story should be funny, but that's actually risky. Jokes are not always funny to everyone, and most of us are not comedians. Most of us are not very good at delivering jokes, and then if no one laughs, you're not off to a very good start. But you could use a quote from someone famous that's humorous. Here's an example. As Mark Twain once said, it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

The third kind of hook is to give some surprising information to your audience. It could be a statistic. For example, in the alarm clock example, it might be the average number of people who sleep through multiple alarm clocks. It's great if you can find a statistic or some surprising information that you'll come up with a solution to in your presentation later. But it could be just something interesting that's related to one of your points, not your main point. For example, did you know that six million workers oversleep each day in the United Kingdom? Imagine that you're giving a presentation about one of these topics. What are some ideas for surprising information or statistics you could use?

Think about this for just a few seconds. Now, did you come up with any of these ideas I've thought of? For presentation skills, here's my idea. Did you know that public speaking is most people's biggest fear? In fact, it ranks higher than fear of death in some polls. What did you think of for air pollution? Maybe it's similar to this one that I had. Here's a statistic that may surprise you. Worldwide, 3.3 million people die early deaths each year because of air pollution. And scientists believe that number will almost double by the year 2050.

Okay, so you've gotten people's attention. Let's make sure that people know who you are. When you introduce yourself and any co-presenters, be sure to include information about your background or experience that's relevant to the topic. Say who you are and why you're a good person to speak on this topic. On the subject of keeping people's attention and establishing credibility, sometimes people in your audience are noisy. So, what can you do when this happens? One idea is to be silent until they stop talking. Just wait. Or, if they're talking about something you said in your presentation, comment on the noise, but tell them the benefit of listening to you again.

Say something like, oh, I see everyone has something to say about this. Let me show you some more interesting things. Or you could say, oh, it's great that everyone has something to say, but let's continue. My third idea is to build audience interaction into your presentation. You can tell them you'll get a chance to talk. For example, you can say, I'm going to give you time to discuss this in just a few minutes, but first, let me continue.

Okay, let's continue with introductions. We talked about ABCD earlier. Let's talk a little bit more about D direction. It's time to give an overview of your presentation. Tell the audience what you're going to tell them, the goal, and possibly how this will benefit them. If you have co-presenters, say what each person will do. A common mistake that English learners would make is to say, I would like to introduce my topic. Do not use the word introduce here. You do not introduce a plan. You give the plan or you show a plan. If you have a slide with the agenda on it, say something like, let me show you our plan. Or here's an overview of our presentation.

Instead of giving the outline your plan, you could also state your objectives. For example, my goal is to show you more effective ways to keep your team connected. Or maybe, here's what our objectives are today. Most presentations have three key points. If you're showing your overview or objectives in a slide or a handout, use short, noun or verb phrases. Or possibly short questions. And we'll work more on this in the next lesson.