SPEAKING SKILLS
SOME TIPS FOR YOUR ORAL PRESENTATION
It’s not easy to give a good oral presentation but these tips will help you.
Content
Check assignment guidelines to make sure you meet all requirements.
Choose to present material that YOU find interesting and engaging.
Use more formal language, varied and rich vocabulary.
Prepare your text beforehand and proofread it, avoiding vocabulary and grammar mistakes.
Clarify any terms or ideas your audience might need explained.
Exclude information that is not essential and avoid repetition and generalization.
Organization
Grab attention with an introduction that makes your audience want to learn more. Strategies include a
challenge, a provocative question, a powerful quote, a surprising statistic, an unusual or unexpected fact, a
poignant story, or a “teaser.”
Choose the best organizational strategy. Possibilities include chronological/sequential, problem & solution,
compare and contrast, and topical.
If you are allowed to have a note card, write short notes in point form.
Provide clear “signposts” (linking words) to make it clear how you are transitioning to new ideas.
Give a powerful closing/ending that quickly reviews major points and perhaps leaves listeners with a
memorable thought, a call to action, or other engaging ending.
Visual Aids
You may use visual aids (be sure they are relevant to the talk in that they don’t just repeat what you say, and
are as simple as possible).
PowerPoint slides should make no sense without you; in other words, your audience should need YOU to
explain what is on the PPT.
Attitude/Communication skills
Despite very natural fears of speaking in public, try to appear calm and confident.
Do your best to identify and avoid nervous ticks and habits like playing with hair, adjusting clothing, rocking
back and forth, continuously smiling or giggling, mangling notes, or saying “like,” “um,” or “uh.”
Choose a way to stand that feels comfortable for you.
Try to stand relatively still except for purposeful movement like gestures, crossing to a different location, and
stepping forward or backward or side to side to emphasize points or transitions in your presentation.
Try not to slouch, whether standing or sitting down.
Don’t dwell on mistakes, which happen to everybody.
Some strategies to help you calm down and maintain poise include visualizing the room/audience and
reviewing the speech in your mind, or taking three long breaths before you go up to present, and another
after you’re in place.
Voice
Speak loudly enough so that everyone can comfortably hear every word.
Enunciate (even over-enunciate if necessary) so each word can be heard.
Practise pronunciation and possibly grammar beforehand.
Life
Demonstrate your enthusiasm by “putting life” into your voice.
Emphasize some words and phrases with emotion and volume.
Make eye contact with your audience in order to make people feel involved.
Familiarize yourself with your material so that you are not too dependent on looking at your notes as you speak.
Practice so that you don’t speak too slowly or too quickly out of nervousness.
Use pacing to enhance your message: some parts should be faster or slower.
Use pauses as a powerful tool for emphasis and dramatic effect.
Gestures
Use hands, body movement, and facial expressions to convey or emphasize points.
Match motion to your words by holding up fingers when counting, using gestures to describe sound or
motion.
BREAKING THE
GLASS CEILING
Oral presentation
Bearing this in mind, you are going to give a presentation about a personality that defiantly has broken the
“glass celing”.
Choose ONE of these personalities (or find yourself another one) and talk about him/her:
1. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf 16. Frida Kahlo
2. Madeha Al Ajroush 17. Stephen Hawking
3. Shukria Barakzai - 18. Nick Vujicic
4. Monica McWilliams 19. Alex Zanardi
5. Vigdis Finnbogadottir 20. Aaron Fotheringham
6. Valentina Tereshkova 21. Kamala Harris
7. Hillary Clinton 22. rig. Gen. Hazel Johnson-Brown
8. Sarah Breedlove aka Madam C.J. Walker 23. Ron Oden
9. Aretha Franklin 24. Condoleezza Rice
10. Martha Stewart 25.Victor J. Glover, Jr.
11. Oprah Winfrey 26. Malala Yousafzai
12. Jumko Tabei 27. Aarohi Pandit
13. Katharine Meyer Graham 28. Serena Williams
14. Helene de Pourtales 29. Janet Mock
15. Danielle Brown 30. Cynthia “Cynt” Marshall
