Presenting in another language is difficult, especially in front of large audiences. While your English doesn’t have to be perfect, it’s important that your audience can generally understand your content.
One way to help with this is to use specific phrases to guide your audience through the presentation. We often call this transitional or connective language. Remember, unlike when you write about something, when presenting, the audience only have one chance to hear what you say and can’t go back and reread it if they don’t understand. With this in mind, it’s important you try to help the audience by reminding them about what you’ve just said and telling them what you’re going to say next. Try using some of the phrases below to help with this:
The “linking” phrases are particularly helpful for guiding the audience through the body of the talk as they connect with more than one other part of the content. But be careful as they connect to different parts (as below):
(1) Now that I’ve talked about [previous part], I’d like to talk about [next part]…
(2) Before I talk about [future part], I’d like to talk about [next part]…
You can also exchange the verb “talk” in these phrases with “present” to give your talk a slightly more formal tone.
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Extra tip!! Make sure your final conclusion is extra simple and clear as this is often what the audience will listen to most closely. You could start this by saying: “Before I finish my talk, I’d like to summarize my key points…” It’s also a good idea to repeat key visuals/sides in the conclusion rather than have the audience try to understand new ones. |
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