"Okay--"
Are you afraid of giving presentations in English?
I hear you.
Even in our first language, it might be sometimes challenging
to deliver presentations.
In this episode, I'm going to share with you a few tips and strategies on how to
prepare and structure your presentation so you can deliver it confidently
and have a positive experience.
I have seen it.
I have used it.
And now I'm going to share it.
I've also prepared for you a checklist that you can download for
free, so that you can remember all the steps and the things that you
need to do before a presentation so you can have a successful one.
If you're new to my channel, then Hi, I'm Hadar.
I'm an English fluency and pronunciation coach.
I'm a non-native speaker of English.
And I'm here to help you speak English with clarity, confidence, and freedom.
Check out my website hadarshemesh.com for a lot of free resources
to help you get started.
And come say hi on Instagram at @hadar.accentsway where I share
daily tips for improving your fluency, pronunciation, and mindset.
Here's the thing, delivering your presentation requires a certain skill.
First of all, the confidence of speaking in public.
Second, you have to know what you're talking about so you can deliver what you
want to say in a clear and simple way.
Sometimes, when you deliver a presentation in a language that is not your native
language, there are a lot of fears associated with it, in addition to
potential public speaking fears.
And those fear are around not being able to communicate your message
clearly, getting stuck, not using the right words, not being understood,
and all of that "good" stuff.
But here's the thing.
If you prepare well, you can avoid all of these challenges and come to
the presentation feeling prepared and feeling confident, and actually
succeeding in the presentation.
So, I'm going to divide it into two parts.
The first part is going to be around structuring your
presentation and preparing for it.
And the second part is what to do right before presenting.
And that has to do with your performance, and dealing with stress
and anxiety that might come up.
So the first part is about preparing your presentation.
Here you have to be very, very prepared.
There's no such thing as over-preparing.
Because when you prepare really well, first of all, think of
it as practicing your English.
You know, it does not have to be just for the sake of the presentation,
it could be just for developing your communication skills in English.
Because when you repeat something again and again, you can optimize
it and fine-tune it, and notice things that you usually don't notice
when you're speaking in English.
Like how you use your body, or how you use your voice, or the words that you use.
So repetition and preparation is nothing to be ashamed of.
And I recommend that you do a lot of it, but there is a way to do.
That is effective and not just redundant.
And I'm gonna talk about that, but what I'm saying is that
preparation matters a lot.
So make sure you set some time aside for preparation; and probably
more than you think you will need.
Okay?
Good.
Now, I'm not gonna go into the actual structure of the presentation.
I'm just going to recommend that when you plan the presentation, you want to
make sure that you're clear about the beginning, the middle, and the end.
And in terms of your preparation, you wanna focus mostly on the
beginning and, probably, the end.
And the middle – you wanna prepare for it, but it should not take most
of your time in the preparation.
Why?
Because the beginning is the most important part.
If you start strong, you are more likely to continue strong.
If your beginning is weak, you're more likely to have a hard time coming
out of the feeling of incompetence or feeling like you are not doing well.
And you will lose momentum, and that is going to affect your entire presentation.
So focus on the beginning more than the rest of the parts.
Now, how do you prepare for a presentation?
Like I said, you have beginning, middle, and end.
And you wanna write bullet points for each part.
Right?
How do you want to introduce your talk, your presentation?
What do you want to do to grab their attention?
And you wanna write a few bullet points.
I do not recommend to write the script unless you have a few months
to prepare for that presentation.
If it's something that you only have a few weeks to prepare for, I would
recommend learning what you wanna say, and then practicing saying it
freely and talking about it freely in all sorts of different ways.
So, now that you have the bullet points for the beginning, middle,
and end, you wanna practice speaking freely based on those bullet points.
So I would spend a few minutes every day, not full hours if
you have the time for it, right?
Just like a few minutes elaborating on each of the bullet points.
You wanna talk about it, you know, when you are doing your dishes, when you're
walking your dog, when you're in your car.
Remember the bullet points and each time just try to elaborate and
explain it and talk about it freely.
Learn how to talk about it from several different angles and in several different
ways so it isn't just this one way.
You wanna create versatility and freedom talking about those things.
This is how you're gonna feel prepared, especially if people ask you
questions in the middle or at the end.
You will feel confident to answer those questions, 'cause you have practiced
it in many different ways, and not just in one way that is very rigid
and strict, and you will feel very limited when people ask questions.
So, after writing the bullet points and elaborating on all of these
points, you wanna structure it and organize it, ideally, with slides.
If you do work on slides, make sure that most of the time is not devoted to design.
And usually, if you use Canva or Keynote or PowerPoint, you usually
have a lot of great templates.
I would really focus on not spending a lot of time on design,
even though it's very tempting.
Because most of the work on the presentation should be on the actual
speaking: not thinking, not structuring, not organizing the photos on your
slides, and not playing with the fonts.
It should be all about speaking.
All right?
So once you have the slides, you have the beginning, middle, and end; you
have practiced the bullet points.
Now it's time to practice the entire presentation.
Like I said, I think the beginning is the most important part.
So, the ratio should be three to one.
That means you practice the beginning three times, and the third time you
go into the entire presentation.
And then again, you practice the beginning twice more and then you
do the entire presentation again.
Now, if there are parts where you feel stuck or where you feel you're
unclear, just practice that part alone, just do it again and again, and again.
You don't need to do the entire presentation from
beginning, middle, to end.
Because again, like you don't really need to improve the parts
that are already working well.
You wanna improve the parts that are hard for you, that are not clear,
that you feel like you get stuck.
And if you feel that you don't have the words – stop, write it down; think
about how you wanna say it; look up some words that you might wanna add or
include; and then just practice it again and again, and again, just that part.
And then do the whole presentation.
If you have friends or family members that would like to listen to
you, I recommend that you do that.
And one more thing that is very useful is to present while being distracted.
So you can turn on the TV, or play some music, or ask your kids to make
some noise and play next to you, and try to deliver the presentation
as you're being distracted and as other things are happening.
Because what happens is that you'll learn how to stay on track, even though the
circumstances don't allow it, cuz that's what happens in a real presentation.
Sometimes you get distracted.
Another thing you can do is to record yourself and watch the video.
And then, first of all, stop judging yourself, and don't just look at the bad
things, look at what works, even list it.
Because that part is really important, it's really important that you
are able to recognize what works.
And then write the things that you would like to improve.
And then work just on those things and deliver the entire presentation again.
On the day of the presentation or right before the presentation, you
wanna set yourself up for success.
So the first thing you can do is to do a little warmup or a pronunciation warmup.
I have a few videos that I'm going to link to in the checklist that I've
prepared for you, that you can do just to get your muscles going and
to help you improve your diction.
The second thing I want you to do is to focus on your breath.
Right before the presentation, take a few deep breaths.
You fill your body up with oxygen, you calm down, and it helps you settle
your nerves, if you feel nervous.
Right?
Check for tension, check your shoulders, check your throat, your
neck if you have some tension there.
And really focus on breathing into your belly, and breathing out really slowly.
Another thing is that I want you to make sure that you clear your mind.
Don't be on your phone or check your emails or on social media
or have some hard conversations right before the presentation.
Because it's really important to feel clear and focused, and not occupy your
brain with a lot of things that are not necessary for that specific presentation.
Another thing I want you to think about is to step into a positive mindset.
So if you have some negative thoughts and fears, and maybe you feel like
your English is not good enough and you're gonna get stuck and people
are gonna judge you, maybe fill your brain with more positive thoughts
rather than negative thoughts.
For example: "I deserve to be heard", "People want to hear what
I have to say", "My voice matters."
If I found it helpful, other people will find it helpful too.
This is going to help people.
So, say these things to yourself and remind yourself that it's about them, and
not just about you and how you're feeling.
Because you are here to deliver knowledge and they need to hear it.
And it does not matter if you make a pronunciation mistake or grammar mistake,
or even if you get stuck – we're all humans, and they want to see you succeed.
Remember that when you go on stage or when you present on Zoom, or
even if you present in front of two people in a small meeting.
That's what matters.
All right, that's it.
Now I wanna hear from you: What do you do when you are preparing for a
presentation or a meeting or a talk?
Write it down in the comments, and let's share it with the community.
If you like this episode and you found it helpful, please feel free to share it
with friends and colleagues and students.
And don't forget to subscribe so you can find out about every new
video that I post once a week.
Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of the day.
And I'll see you next week in the next video.
Bye.