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Your Ultimate Guide to Delivering a Presentation in English

Writer's picture: JoanneJoanne

Working for a multinational the chances are you use English at work every day and are comfortable doing so. However, delivering a presentation can be a different story. You are standing in front of a room full of people and your written and spoken English will be on display to everyone.



You might ask yourself, how do I deliver a good presentation in English?


This Ultimate Guide is going to help you with that by highlighting key words and phrases you can use to give your presentation the ultimate polish. Whether you are standing in front of your team, or a more global audience, these tips will help you feel confident in the structure, content and delivery of your presentation.


As an introvert I find it difficult to talk in front of other people, but not when I am giving a presentation. Why? Because I prepare and structure the content in order to deliver the message clearly.


Using my personal experience from working at a multinational chemical company and my TEFL* training I have prepared this guide for you.

*Teaching English as a Foreign Language




 

Why are presentations at work so important?

Multinational organisations use presentations for many reasons, some examples include

  • training

  • updates on department performance

  • regular project updates

  • explaining new processes

If you work for a multinational you will no doubt have listened to a presentation or maybe been part of delivering one.


What makes a presentation good and keeps the attention of the audience?

  • Structure helps you to keep on message.

  • Pictures or diagrams help to keep the attention of your audience.

  • Clear and well paced language means that everyone can understand.

  • Questions to keep you and your audience engaged.



The key elements

Follow these 4 tips and you will be on your way to delivering a good presentation in English.


Structure

Say what you are going to say, say it, and say it again!

In other words use an introduction to say what you are going to say.

Use the body or main part of the presentation to deliver the main content.

End with a conclusion or summary slide to remind your audience of what you have said.


Phrases for your introduction

"Good morning, my name is .... and I'm going to talk to you about..."

"Good morning, thank you for joining this presentation on..."

"Good afternoon, today we are going to look at how to..."

Once you have introduced yourself, and the topic, in whichever way you feel comfortable read through the introduction slide at a pace your listener can follow.


The introduction would be a good place to let the audience know whether they can ask questions during the presentation or if you would prefer them to wait until the end.

"Please feel free to ask me any questions as we are going through this."

"If you have any questions, please make a note of them and ask at the end of the presentation."



Phrases for the main part of your presentation

Use structured language to make it clear when you have started, or moved on, to a new section. Using the following linking words can help:

"Firstly,..."

"Let's start by..."


"Secondly,..."

"Moving on to the next section..."

"Following on from that step..."

"Next..."


"Finally..."

"Lastly..."

"The final step is..."


Phrases for the conclusion or summary

Let your listeners know that you are on the last slide of your presentation by using these phrases:

"To summarise all of this information..."

"As you have seen during this presentation..."


"Finally"

"Does anyone have any questions?"




Pictures or diagrams

A picture says a thousand words.

It can do this in your presentation, or it can provide a focal point for your listener. Either way a picture will add interest to your slide. It should be a size that your audience can see, but not too big that they are no longer looking at the key words on your slide.


If you are explaining a process include a diagram of it. This will make it easier to understand, just make sure you refer to the diagram when you are talking using phrases like:

"As you can see here..."

"In this section you can see..."

"Once this step has been completed, you can see it will have a clear impact on the following steps taken by the sales department here..."


Clear language

Everyone should be able to understand what you have to say.

Keep the information on your slides to a minimum, just use key words or statistics.

If you write everything on your slide, your audience will sit and read it and not listen to you. You will also be tempted to turn your head and talk to the slide as you are reading it and not to your audience.


Try to avoid using acronyms in case your audience doesn't know them and your message is lost. If you do use them include a key at the bottom of your slide for easy reference:


"Your goals should be SMART*."

"All data should be registered in the system by EOD*"

"TOS* should be included with all order confirmations."

*SMART - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely

*EOD - End of Day

*TOS - Terms of Service




Questions

When preparing your presentation think about:


Who is it for?

This will help you decide on the type of language to use. Is your audience already familiar with the business or process or are they new employees?


Why do they need this information?

Is it immediately relevant to their role such as a change in process or a new system?

Or is it an update on a project? Maybe you will need to gather information from other departments or ask them to participate during the presentation.


What do I expect them to do with it?

Do they need to implement a new work process straight away?

Do they need to pass this information on to customers? Or not?

Is it information for them to file for future reference?


Where am I going to be presenting?

Online or in person?

If it is online you might want to include more opportunities for questions to make sure that your audience is actively engaged. Maybe provide colleagues with questions to ask in order to encourage others to ask their own questions. There's nothing worse than saying "Does anyone have any questions?" and receiving silence at the end of the line. Is it because you explained everything clearly or is it because nobody was listening?


How am I going to present?

There are many options for delivering presentations, PowerPoint, Prezi, Google Slides etc.

The one you use may be dictated by your company software package. Whichever one you use make sure you are familiar with it by practicing with the different tools it can offer, and doing a couple of run throughs, before you go live.


When am I going to present?

First thing in the morning is usually ideal, when your audience may be enjoying their first coffee of the day and before they have opened their emails or workflows.

Straight after lunch can be more difficult, if this is the case try to keep it as interactive as possible to keep your audience engaged and fight the post-lunch slump.


If your audience is remote ask them to take part in an interactive quiz and use the results to illustrate a point in your presentation. This can be done during the introduction or main part of your presentation to keep it as interactive as possible when delivery is remote.


If all of your audience is in the same room, split your audience into groups to discuss a topic and ask someone to feed back to the group.

Use a separate whiteboard and ask your audience to come up and write down ideas.


Are you ready to get started?

The key piece of information to remember is:

Say what you are going to say, say it and remind your audience of what you have said.


In order to do this you need to:

  • prepare

  • have a clear structure

  • use clear language

  • think about why you are delivering the presentation

All of this will help you focus clearly and achieve your goal of delivering a great presentation in English.


Leave a comment and let me know how you got on giving your presentation.


Looking for some practice before you get started?

Click here to find out more about short courses in giving a presentation in English.




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