FOREIGN TRADE UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES

-----o0o-----

QTKD – 30B (Academic English 1)

(Prism Reading & Writing 3)

Hanoi, January 2024

Tran Thi Trung Hieu, PhD QTKD – 30B

 LECTURE 4- PRESENTING SKILLS

How to Make an Effective Presentation

“A person without a plan is lost before they start.” - Lewis K Bendele

I. Planning your presentation

1. Choose the topic of your presentation: Choosing the topic of your presentation is arguably
one of the most important parts of presentation creation. Even if it doesn’t seem to be an exciting
topic, you can still make your presentation engaging with the right presentation skills and eye-
catching presentation visuals.

2. Research your topic and know it inside and out

One way you can achieve your confidence is by knowing all the ins and outs of your topic. This
way, you’ll feel prepared for any questions and know just how to answer them. You can do in-
depth research on any topic by reading up on related material online or in a library.

3. Consider your audience and speak their language

By knowing your crowd’s interests, attention span and pain points, you’ll be able to connect them
through your presentation. Plus, you’ll be in a better position to solve their problems and add
value to their lives. Your presentation would likely be more successful if you simplify the
information and start with the basics before jumping into the data and technicalities.

4. Decide on your presentation’s purpose

For every presentation you create, you need to have an end goal and purpose in mind.

Every presentation’s goal can be summed up within one of the following purposes:

Tran Thi Trung Hieu, PhD QTKD – 30B

  To inform

 To entertain

 To inspire

 To persuade
Your presentation’s purpose may even be a combination of the above four.

The idea of pinpointing your presentation’s purpose is to help you create your presentation’s
subject matter, outline and structure more easily.

5. Create a solid presentation outline

In order to make a great presentation, you need to have a great outline with three key things: a
compelling intro, a strong body and a conclusion that drives your main points.

 A compelling intro: Starting with a strong intro can make your audience sit up in their
seats and listen to you. Some ways to start your presentation include asking a thought-
provoking question, listing the benefits and shocking the audience with a fact or statistic.

 A strong body: To write a great body for your presentation, you need to unravel your
opening statement, give evidence by including all of your facts and statistics and include
supporting arguments to prove your statements and to educate your audience on your
topic.

 An actionable conclusion: In your conclusion, make sure you loop back to your original
opening statement and give your audience actionable steps to take in order to reach the
solution you have to offer them.

5. Writing the Presentation Content

The content is the real “meat” of your presentation — you need to ensure that it’s credible, full of
value and crafted in a way that makes it easy for your audience to understand it.

6. Limit the amount of text on your slides

Tran Thi Trung Hieu, PhD QTKD – 30B

Following Rule 6 in designing your slides: Keep your text to 6 words in 1 line and 6 lines per
slide

7. Fact-check all your information

If you want your audience to trust you, then make sure you’re getting all of your information
from reputable sources and anyone can fact-check your data.

8. Use storytelling to your advantage

People are more inclined to remember stories that touched them rather than statistics simply
listed out on a slide. To make your presentation the most effective, you can use a combination of
the two and tell a story to back up your main points and data.

9. Include lots of practical examples

One way to add context to your presentation content is to include a lot of practical examples.
Telling people what a certain piece of information can mean for them in their everyday life can
leave a much stronger impact than simply telling them the information exists.

II. Functional language in presentation contents

1. Greeting Your Audience
- Good morning/afternoon/evening, everyone.
- Welcome to [name of event].
- First, let me introduce myself. I am [name] from [company].
- My topic today is….
2. Outlining your presentation
- I would like to divide my presentation into ….. main parts.
- First, I will introduce….
- In the second part, I continue to talk about
- Finally, let me summarize….
3. Beginning Your Presentation

Tran Thi Trung Hieu, PhD QTKD – 30B

 - Let me start by giving you some background information.
- As you’re aware, …
4. Transitioning to the Next Topic
- Let’s move on to…
- Turning our attention now to…
5. Providing More Details
- I’d like to expand on…
- Let me elaborate further.
6. Linking to Another Topic
- As I said at the beginning, …
- This relates to what I was saying earlier…
- This ties in with…
7. Emphasizing a Point
- The significance of this is…
- This is important because…
- We have to remember that …
8. Making Reference to Information
- Based on our findings, …
- According to our study, …
- Our data shows …
9. Explaining Visuals
- I’d like to illustrate this point by showing you…
- This chart shows a breakdown of …
10. Restating Your Point
- In other words, …
- To put it simply, …
- What I mean to say is …
11. Concluding Your Presentation
- In conclusion, let me sum up my main points.
- Thank you for your attention. Now I am happy to answer any questions you might have.

Tran Thi Trung Hieu, PhD QTKD – 30B

III. Using connectors

Use connectors to make transitions from one point to another and to present details within
certain points. Here are some examples of connectors for different situations:

o Presenting main points: firstly, secondly, last but not least

o Making additions: moreover, furthermore, in addition, besides, what’s more

o Making purposes clear: in order to, so as to

o Presenting reasons and causes: on account of, due to, since, seeing that

o Presenting consequences: consequently, as a result, therefore

o Expressing contrast: in spite of, despite, although, even though, however, nevertheless, in
contrast, on the contrary

IV. Presentation criteria

No Criteria Mark
1 Individual work Performance 10
2 PPT slides 10
3 Visual aids 10
4 Fluency 10
5 Accuracy 10
6 Stress & intonation 10
7 Interaction 10
8 Groupwork Preparation 10
9 Content 10
10 Q&A part 10
Final mark 100
V. Presentation sample and practice
- Listening practice: 1.2. Listen to a presentation, 1.9, 6.4 – 6.5 Prism Listening 2
- Apple WWDC 2008 - iPhone 3G Introduction by Steve Jobs
https://youtu.be/r7fVWjgxRwk

Tran Thi Trung Hieu, PhD QTKD – 30B

Tran Thi Trung Hieu, PhD QTKD – 30B