How to effectively present in English in the 21st Century

Animating your slides can really make your presentation come alive. Sadly, as with all great tools, animation is quite often abused and some presenters overdo the animation. When animation is overdone, the message in your presentation is often lost as your audience is more interested in what will be the next animation.

However, animating your slides can be really useful when you want to bring in information slowly. It is not a good idea to put all the information you want to talk about onto a slide and have your audience see what you are about to say. Human nature means that your audience will always read ahead of you. The best way to handle this is to build in some ‘builds’ – “Build” means bringing in your text or image in stages. For example:

I use my presentation software to teach my business English classes. Quite often I begin a class with a series of discussion questions. However, I do not want my students to be thinking of the next question, I want them focussed on the question I want answering at the moment. To achieve this I bring each question in using my animation tools (in this case a build)

In the example below, I have taken 4 slides, and written the question I want to ask on each slide. I have then used the transition function to create a small, simple animation. The animation creates flow and movement within my presentation, but it does so in a way that my audience will not be focussed on my animation.

Remember, my goal is to have student focus on the question and not the animation. This means when I am putting together my questions, I am first thinking of my audience, and second thinking of the animation.

Here is a short video of the finished result:

I hope this little post helps you think a little more creatively about your slides. If anyone does have a specific tutorial request, please feel free to leave a message on this blog and I will be happy to write a tutorial for you.