Another the Media Education

A nightmare presentation

You’ve spent hours preparing your presentation. The data and material have been fastidiously compiled. The conclusions have been pored over and refined. The presentation slides have been edited and formatted. Yet halfway through the presentation’s delivery, you glance up at your audience to find not rapt attention and expectant anticipation, but glazed looks and stifled yawns. A quick head count suggests that two-thirds of your audience are either checking their phones, doodling idly on otherwise empty sheets of paper, or inspecting their fingernails. What has gone wrong?

We spend so long wondering if our English is correct and preparing the material for our presentations that we often forget there are actually two other essential conditions we must fulfil before we can inform or persuade anyone with a presentation. The actual content of a presentation should take a lowly third place in our planning and delivery. Here are the essential conditions that must be met before your audience will concern themselves with the content of your business presentation:

1. You must somehow grab the audience’s attention, and then…
2. You need to keep them interested (and on their toes), and only then…
3. Can you inform or persuade them.

If we focus exclusively on what we want to say, not on how we are going to say it, few people will actually listen. For someone whose first language is not English, the need to grab and keep attention is, perhaps, even more important.

Body talk

It is not just in the big presentation where our focus on the message rather than its delivery can trip us up. In the workplace, those who communicate effectively are those who are aware of their non-verbal communication. You can say all the right words and still come across as aggressive or arrogant. How? The body communicates as effectively as the words you speak, so think about how you are standing, the tone of your voice, your use of gestures and your eye contact. If you are speaking to an audience whose culture is not your own, being aware of the cultural differences of body language is one way to avoid misunderstandings.

Devil in the detail

Good communication in business starts with applying for a job. Your CV may be perfect, but that hasty email you sent to the secretary, full of typos and colloquialisms, tells a different story. Most CVs are forwarded to the decision maker with the email they were attached to. We send so many emails that we often forget that in business an email is another form of communication we will be judged on.

The same is true when in a role. Just because an email is quick and easy to fire off does not mean you should take less care writing it. Each email you send is a record and says something about you.

Dream communication skills

Dream communication is about getting your audience’s attention, keeping it, and then, informing or persuading them. You need to be able to communicate effectively at the big event, giving presentations, and in smaller everyday ways, through emails or body language. If English is your second language, you need to be aware of ploys you can use to grab and keep attention, and the cultural connotations of body language, and you should take care with every email you send. Courses ran by schools such as St Georges in England can help students to improve their communication and presentation skills. For instance, you can choose an IELTS course London offers if you need to prepare for academic study to further your career, or you can dive straight into a business English course and really concentrate on gaining dream communication skills. But however you choose to learn the skills, remember that it’s not what you say, but the way that you say it.