Teaching materials

1. Michelle Li

2. Michelle Li

3.  Speech v.s. presentation
◦ Language-intensive activity
◦ Image-intensive activity
◦ A speech maximize the importance of language.
◦ Presentation, on the other hand, maximizes the
importance of visuals and thereby reduces the
importance of language competency.

4. ◦ Pace is often the difference between success and
failure.
◦ Visuals, used effectively, can significantly speed up
the pace.
◦ One picture is worth a thousand words.
◦ Think carefully about what your message is,
committing it to an image, and then letting the
image “talk for them”.
◦ Use short and simple sentences to guide the
audience through the visuals.

5. ◦ Native speakers of English rely on word stress,
intonation, and tone of voice to emphasize key words
and what the speaker wants the audience to
remember.
◦ Non-native speakers, though, often struggle with
those.
◦ Visuals can compensate the non-native speakers’
struggles.
◦ Key words and numbers can be visually emphasized,
and that is perhaps even more effective than verbal
emphasis.
◦ Visuals provide the variety and interest that might be
lacking in the presenter’s verbal delivery.

6. ◦ Clarity is a goal that challenges many presenters.
◦ A presenter’s strength comes from images – images
that show differences between concepts, that
describe component parts of a problem, and that
show relations between ideas.

7.  The visual message is important because
even if you stumble over sentences.
Mispronounce words, or get the numbers
wrong, the audience will still understand.

8.  keep the background simple
 show key word / names / numbers on the slides
 use key words or images
 choose the right slide for the right message
 use a simple conclusion slide

9.  Slide analysis
◦ Analyze the following slides and figure out the
problems and the possible solutions.

18.  Speakers can’t remember main point.
 Font point size is too small.
 Long sentences
 Noisy background

21.  Difficult to visualize a trend

23.  Wrong kind of chart to show percentages

25.  “Noisy” conclusion chart
 Font is too small

27.  Different ideas need different visuals.

31.  Show images
◦ Change a confusing table of numbers into a graph.
◦ Change a list of location into a map.
◦ Change words into a flow chart.

32.  Keep your information short and simple
◦ Simplify sentences into easily remembered key
words and phrases.
◦ Eliminate unnecessary information.
◦ Eliminate unnecessary details. Round off numbers
and eliminate extra words to make easily
remembered key points.