How to present in English

In the final part of how to turn a presentation in to a great presentation I want to focus on 5 tips you can use that will help you with the language you should be using when you present.

So, here are the five language tips you can use that will help turn your next presentation in to a great presentation.

1. Use short sentences.

In modern day English, the trend is for us to use short, simple sentences. The reason for this is that shorter sentences are easier to follow and also helps your presentation feel like it is flowing faster. Another advantage of using short sentences is that it helps you, a non-native English speaker, to remember the key phrases and sentences you need to use.

2. Use Action words

English is an action language, not a descriptive language. So always try to use an action verb or action phrase. Doing this will keep your audience interest high. For example. Use words like:

Developed, produced, created, designed, sold and shipped

Notice how Steve Jobs always begins his presentations with an ‘update’. By doing this he allows himself to begin his presentation with positive, action words that get his audience excited and amazed.

3. Tell personal stories

One of the biggest criticisms I hear from native English speakers when talking about how Korean people present in that Korean presenters always sound inhumane. It is as if they are not human. One way round this is to tell stories from your own life. It is possible that you are taught from an early age that you should not mix your personal life with your professional life. This is just BS! Business is human. Doing business is about human relationships and contacts. So, tell stories from your personal life.

Before is an example of a speaker at TED telling a personal story to begin his presentation. Doing this makes him sound much more human and allows him to connect with his audience

4. Use positive adjectives

In English we like to hear positive words. Positive words stimulate our minds and keeps our attention. A presentation full of negative adjectives is likely to send us to sleep. So, when you are preparing your presentation, check through it carefully to make sure that the majority of words you are using are positive. Examples of positive words are:
Brilliant, cool, excellent, fantastic, great.

WARNING! - Do not keep using the same words over and over again. If you do, you create a Mark Anthony situation (This situation comes from Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar where Mark Anthony repeated the words “for they are honourable men” over and over again during his speech following the murder of Julius Caesar, to the point where his audience began not to believe these words – they became sarcastic)
5. Use Emotional words

The best presentations create emotion. The emotion they create does not matter, it can be funny or sad. It really does not matter. Presentations that evoke emotion are always memorable and always get talked about.
To create emotion in a presentation get your audience to imagine a situation. For example:
“Imagine how you feel when you are stuck in a huge traffic jam and you are five minutes away from the most important interview of your life”

By asking your audience to ‘imagine’ how they would feel in a given situation, allows your audience to feel the emotion you want them to feel. It’s a great trick and it keeps your audience involved in your presentation.
By following the advice given here and in my previous two posts you can turn any presentation in to a great presentation. Good luck and stay positive.

When preparing your presentation, think carefully about the words you use.

I am not saying that you need to think carefully about your sentences, I prefer people to be natural and allow their sentences to take on a life of their own, what I am say is that you should build in what is commonly called “Action Verbs”

Action verbs are verbs that describe an action. For example: build, create, design and sell. These words have a very positive meaning and have the ability to catch the attention of your audience. What they do is describe in a positive way something that you or your company have achieved (another action verb)

A great way to build these in to your presentation is through your planning. When you plan your presentation, write down between ten and twenty action verbs. Then when you are translating your notes into English, make sure that you use these verbs.

For example:

“In 2002 we decided to apply for a permit to hold a Formula One race here in Korea. We built our plan around a modern concept creating unique features and designing one of the best racing tracks in the world.

It has taken almost eight years of dedicated hard work, selling and negotiating to get where we are today, but I am please to announce that from 2010, South Korea will have the honour of holding it’s first Formula One Grand Prix.

And we are ready. We have built a fantastic racetrack, designed some of the most cutting edge features and created a complex that the whole of South Korea can be proud of.”

By building in these action verbs, you create a sense of action and power in your presentation and it gives your audience something to be interested in.

Mixing the action verbs with some power adjectives is one of the most effective ways of delivering a memorable and exciting presentation.