108&3'6- 13& 4&/5"5*0/4 QBHFnJQDIBSUUIBUQSPNPUFTQVCMJDTQFBLJOH 3EVEN 3TEPS TO 3UCCESSFUL 3PEAKING (3")". '045&3 Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking. Graham foster. Copyright © 2006. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission. Powerful Presentations will help all speakers improve their oral language skills — their ability to plan and deliver presentations with efficiency, confidence, and influence. To show you the best way to become a more accomplished speaker, the book focuses on specific strategies used by successful presenters and challenges you to choose helpful strategies before, during, and after your presentation. 7 SETTING FUTURE GOALS 1 WHY PRESENTATIONS? 2 SELECTING CONTENT 3 CONSIDERING VOICE AND ILLUSTRATIONS 4 COMMANDING ATTENTION 5 PRESENTING CONFIDENTLY 6 ASSESSING IMPACT Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking. Graham foster. Copyright © 2006. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission. Contents 1. Why Presentations? Purpose, Audience, and Environment 4 Audience Survey 5 2. Selecting Content Main Ideas and Details 6 Planning Form 7 3. Considering Voice and Illustrations Emotion and Humor 8 Show As Well As Tell 9 Unique Expression 9 Sticky-Note Strategy 10 4. Commanding Attention Powerful Introductions 10 Powerful Conclusions 12 Planning Form 13 5. Presenting Confidently Print Support 14 Presentation Criteria 15 6. Assessing Impact Assessment of Content and Delivery 16 Assessment of the Presentation’s Influence 19 7. Setting Future Goals 22 Using What You’ve Learned 21 SUPPORTING STUDENT PRESENTERS 24 REPRODUCIBLE PAGES 25 INDEX 30 Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking. Graham foster. Copyright © 2006. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission. Purpose, Audience, and Environment More than one comedian has observed that many of us would rather die than speak in public. You will be increasingly confident in your presentations if you implement strategies used by effective speakers. Effective presentations are planned presentations. By thinking about why you are presenting, you have begun the process of presenting successfully. All oral presentations have content. Obviously, you are planning to talk about something. However, content is not enough. If you simply present information on a topic such as nutrition, climate change, vacations, or a favorite book or movie, you may enhance your audience’s understanding, but will you change their behavior? Effective oral presentations focus on a clearly defined purpose. The speaker intends that the audience will do something with the information. For topics listed above, purposes might be to eat a balanced diet, to recycle and take public transit more frequently, to travel to Morocco, to read Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, and to stay away from an inferior film. In employment settings, speakers often challenge colleagues to work together toward shared goals or outcomes. For instance, a supervisor wants sales staff to greet customers when they enter the store. In all of these examples, the speaker should not settle on having the audience do no more than listen; the speaker expects specific action. As you begin to plan a presentation, clearly identify your purpose or purposes. Effective oral presentations also respond to the interests and needs of an audience. Remember that all of us typically consider how any proposed action will affect us personally. Often people have concerns about a proposed change. Depending on their background, different audience members will have different concerns. For instance, if you are advocating a selected computer program for reporting sales results, the concerns raised by someone who is afraid to use computers will be different from those who are comfortable with them. Anticipate the receptiveness of various audience members to your purpose and content. Consider use of a survey such as the following as one tool to learn about current understandings, attitudes, and audience concerns. 4 Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking. Graham foster. Copyright © 2006. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission. As a speaker, your purpose is to increase the number of audience members, a group of students, who volunteer for community agencies and who can state at least one reason for volunteering: Audience Survey If you are presenting to a small group, survey the entire group if you can. If you are speaking to a large group, survey 20 or 30 individuals from the group or individuals similar to the group that you are addressing. For the above example about volunteering, be sure to survey students since that group will be your audience. What knowledge and concerns does the survey reveal? How will you respond? Finally, as you plan, consider important aspects of your speaking environment that will help you achieve your purpose with your target audience: ● How long should your presentation be? (Use no more time than required.) ● How large is your audience? ● Will more than one presentation be required? ● If you are part of a team planning the presentation, who will present what? ● Where will the presentation be held? Can you influence seating arrangements? ● What time of day will the presentation occur? ● What is your relationship to the audience — peer, colleague, supervisor, expert? What options do you have about the speaking environment of your presentation? What are the givens? What decisions will you make about environment so that your audience will be more receptive to the action that you will advocate? 1. WHY PRESENTATIONS VOLUNTEERING SURVEY 1. In the past year, on average, how many hours per week did you donate to volunteering? _______________________ 2. Why is it important for young people to volunteer? ______________________________________________ 3. What concerns do you have about volunteering? ______________________________________________ 5 Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking. Graham foster. Copyright © 2006. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission. A critically important characteristic of powerful presentations is the speaker’s careful, specific selection of content. Experts warn about including too much information. You need to be selective — limit yourself to three or four key points. Ideas and Details How familiar are you with the content of your presentation? On a blank piece of paper, list topics that you feel strongly about such as smoking, pet peeves, or perhaps a controversial issue in your community. If you are the leader of a group that seeks to achieve certain goals, list them. On another sheet of paper, list one topic (what you will be speaking about) and clearly identify your purpose (what you want the audience to do). If your topic is smoking, your purpose might be to decrease the amount of smoking among audience members. With pet peeves, you might wish to discourage sending jokes by e-mail. In a group or work setting, your purpose might be to have everyone use a new computer program to communicate. On your own or with a partner, brainstorm and list points on the page that may relate to your topic and purpose. You may need to complete research on your topic with print, human, and media resources. Whether or not you need to complete research, you need to select three or four key points and ensure that you have adequate, relevant details for each point. The following chart emphasizes key questions as it helps you gather, select, and organize your content. If you anticipate questions about your topic, you will be more responsive to audience members and therefore more likely to achieve your purpose. Note details related to each question. If you are short on details, you need to do additional research. Speakers should remember that planning begins with the body of the presentation rather than the introduction. The chart helps you to ensure that you have key questions and adequate details related to your topic, purpose, and audience. Once you are clear about content, your introduction will be much easier to compose. The chart illustrates content related to the Volunteering Survey included earlier in the book. 6 Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking. Graham foster. Copyright © 2006. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission. 2. SELECTING CONTENT QUESTION: What does it mean to be a volunteer? ● Volunteers think about needs in their community. ● Volunteers contribute their time and talent without monetary compensation. ● Many organizations depend on volunteers and could not operate without them. PLANNING CONTENT FOR A PRESENTATION QUESTION: What are the benefits of young people’s volunteering? ● Volunteers express satisfaction in supporting important causes and helping others. ● Volunteers use their strengths and develop new skills. ● Volunteers have advantages when applying for jobs. QUESTION: Why do young people not volunteer? ● Many state a lack of time. (Many organizations offer flexible hours.) ● Young volunteers are afraid to make the commitment. (Consider how your life will be enriched.) ● Many do not know how to volunteer. TOPIC — Volunteering PURPOSE(S) — 1. To increase amount of volunteering in audience. 2. To increase numbers of audience members who can identify reasons and benefits of volunteering. AUDIENCE’S CONCERNS — Lack of time and understanding of how to volunteer. QUESTION: How do young people find the best volunteering options? ● Complete a web search of volunteering needs in your community. ● Identify your area of interest such as hospitals, immigrants, the environment. ● Talk to friends who volunteer. ● Learn about time commitments, support, and benefits offered by the organization. 7 Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking. Graham foster. Copyright © 2006. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission. Emotion and Humor An effective presentation conveys the speaker’s honest emotional response to the content. Often the key is to include anecdotes, stories, and personal observations to illustrate key points that you want to make. It is even better when the stories emerge from your own experience rather than being repeated from other sources. Audiences usually respond positively when you are willing to risk inclusion of stories that illustrate your own struggles, uncertainties, doubts, and mistakes. Since you expect your audience to act on your suggestions, why not tell anecdotes about how you arrived at them? Of course, you will also share your successes and the successes of others. While you do not want to sound like a pushy “know-it-all”, your honest personal voice will enhance your presentation. In the volunteering example earlier in the book, the speaker worked from a personal experience of visiting hospital patients. She described her fear on the first day of volunteering. She thought she had so little in common with older patients. On her first visit, she met a 74-year-old gentleman who was reading a Harry Potter novel. He revealed that he was curious about why the books were so popular with young people. Since Martha, the young volunteer, was a Harry Potter fan, both she and the patient enjoyed the conversation. She realized that she needn’t have worried. What a useful personal anecdote to add voice to the presentation! While audiences usually appreciate humor, decide whether humor is appropriate in your presentation. In addition, think about how comfortable you are telling jokes and humorous anecdotes. If humor is appropriate and comfortable for you, consider using reference books and internet sites with indexes. An index allows you to search efficiently for humor related to your content. Better still, make a point of sharing something both relevant and humorous that happened to you. Show As Well As Tell Once you have selected details for the bulleted points on your planning chart, plan ways to illustrate your ideas. Showing often works better than telling. Consider using charts, pictures, work samples, dramatizations, and video clips as ways to illustrate your ideas. Review the work that you have done with the form Planning Content for a Presentation (page 7). Where can you add effective visual or dramatic illustrations? Remember that you should always explain how your visual dramatization relates to key points. 8 Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking. Graham foster. Copyright © 2006. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission. Unique Expression Effective presentations are strong in voice. You achieve voice as a presenter by including details and language that are unique and that put your own imprint on the presentation. Clichés are the enemy of voice. The word cliché is derived from the French word meaning “to stereotype”. Through over-use, clichés have lost their vitality. Examples of clichés include “see red”, “apple of my eye”, “took to the cleaners”, “run like the wind”, and “in a nutshell”. As you avoid clichés in your presentation, consider fresh comparisons that will add originality to your language and voice to your presentation. Look at the points on your planning form. Try to locate one or two points to think about an original comparison. For example, in the volunteering planning form presented on page 7, the speaker transformed the point about the volunteer’s personal satisfaction as follows: “In the satisfaction they received from helping others, volunteers find technicolor moments in their black and white days.” The expression adds voice to the presentation. Sticky-Note Strategy So that all of this advice is not overwhelming, use a systematic approach with the form Planning Content for a Presentation, on page 7. Read your notes on the form four times with a specific purpose for each reading. Attach sticky notes by related points as you complete each thoughtful reading: 1. Read for places where you might add a personal anecdote. Briefly describe the anecdote on the sticky note; attach the note near the related points. 2. Read for places where you might add humor, if humor is appropriate and comfortable. If you have an anecdote in mind, briefly indicate it on the sticky note. If you need to find a humorous anecdote, write “Humor required here” on the sticky note as you place it appropriately on the planning chart. 3. Read for places where you can illustrate or dramatize a point. Mark and attach the sticky note to indicate the specific form you will use (chart, picture, video clip, etc.) related to the point. 4. Read for places where you can add unique comparisons for fresh expression in your presentation. Once again, note possibilities on sticky notes and attach each note near the related point. 3. CONSIDERING VOICE AND ILLUSTRATIONS 9 Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking. Graham foster. Copyright © 2006. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission. Powerful Introductions Presentations often succeed or fail during the first and last minutes. To succeed, your introduction must create interest; your conclusion must effectively direct specific action. You command attention through careful planning based on strategies used by effective speakers in their introductions and conclusions. First, let’s focus on introductions: As you think about your opening words, remember that your presentation is not the only item that your audience is considering in their day. The reality is that with their busy lives, some audience members are preoccupied with their own deadlines, problems, and challenges. No doubt some are wishing that they were doing something other than listening to you. Your job is to command their attention in your introduction. What do you know about the audience so that your introduction will interest them and focus them for the points that will follow? Let’s begin with a few warnings about what not to do. Never begin by telling the audience how nervous you are. Never begin by telling them that you feel unprepared or that you are unaccustomed to public speaking. Your systematic preparation of critical main ideas and important details as well as of relevant anecdotes, humor, and visual illustrations should build your confidence. If you are still nervous, remember that the audience wants you to succeed. Even though they have other items on their day’s agenda, they know that they are your audience for an assigned period of time. They would rather be interested than bored. Therefore, they hope that you are interesting. Apologetic introductions are dull and defeatist. Avoid them. With examples related to the volunteering topic used earlier in this book, the following chart presents techniques to spark interest. Consider how one or more of these techniques would work with your content. 10 Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking. Graham foster. Copyright © 2006. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission. [...]... want to be contacted © 2006 Powerful Presentations by Graham Foster Pembroke Publishers Limited All rights reserved Permission to reproduce for classroom use 27 Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking Graham foster Copyright © 2006 All rights reserved No reproduction without written permission Topic: PRESENTATION FOLLOW-UP — THINK-PAIR-SHARE Topic:... Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking Graham foster Copyright © 2006 All rights reserved No reproduction without written permission QUESTION: _ PLANNING THE INTRODUCTION AND CONCLUSION CONCLUSION Technique(s): _ Technique(s): _ Text: Text: Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful. .. the development of practical, effective classroom strategies in all aspects of language and learning He is the author of Language Arts Idea Bank, Seven Steps to Successful Writing, and What Good Readers Do Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking Graham foster Copyright © 2006 All rights reserved No reproduction without written permission Distributed in the U.S by Stenhouse Publishers... Mary Fry Check if you want to be contacted Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking Graham foster Copyright © 2006 All rights reserved No reproduction without written permission A second possibility to gather information about audience understanding, concerns, and planning of specific action involves re-use of the survey that you used to plan your presentation (See the “Why... they have done to implement your message PLAN TO ASSESS INFLUENCE OF THE PRESENTATION 1 How will you assess the influence of your presentation? _ _ 2 Why is your plan better than other options to assess the influence of your presentation? _ _ Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking Graham... volunteers dedicate time to helping others The view is only partially correct While volunteers improve the lives of others, they enhance their own lives as well.” ● 4 COMMANDING ATTENTION Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking Graham foster Copyright © 2006 All rights reserved No reproduction without written permission Powerful Conclusions Since you expect your audience to act on the information... satisfaction of helping someone else.” Stress a final powerful point “Young people volunteer for different reasons — the need to serve, the need to improve job prospects Yet all young volunteers stress that volunteering has helped them learn about themselves Can you think of a better use of your time?” 12 Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking Graham foster Copyright © 2006 All rights... _ Goals recorded from to GOALS ACHIEVED Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking Graham foster Copyright © 2006 All rights reserved No reproduction without written permission GOALS © 2006 Powerful Presentations by Graham Foster Pembroke Publishers Limited All rights reserved Permission to reproduce for classroom use 29 Charts, 14, 22 Clichés,... original comparisons CONCLUSION Consistently creates interest Clearly points to specific action Usually creates interest Points to specific action Sometimes creates interest Hints at specific action Rarely creates interest Fails to indicate specific action 6 ASSESSING IMPACT Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking Graham foster Copyright © 2006 All rights reserved No reproduction... your final slide, stress the action that your audience members should take 14 Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking Graham foster Copyright © 2006 All rights reserved No reproduction without written permission 15 Presentation Criteria Before you present to your audience, work with a partner or partners to ensure that your presentation demonstrates each of the following helpful qualities: . following as one tool to learn about current understandings, attitudes, and audience concerns. 4 Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking. Graham. 18 minutes 3. Ability to state at least one benefit to 26% 76% volunteering 20 Powerful Presentations: Seven steps to successful Speaking. Graham foster.