3 Golden Tips For A Better Oral Presentation!

My previous post on tips for a good Oral Presentation was well-received and for that, I have decided to share 3 more golden advice that are very useful for your presentation. I would like to state that my group has done well for our Project Work with all of us clinching nothing less than an A. In case you want to know, our supervising tutor was Mdm Mary Lim. I believe she did give a lecture or two on Project Work.

I have included advice submitted by my readers as well. So here it goes:

1) Help! I keep shaking!
I have both good and bad news for you. The good news is you are not the only one shaking when presenting. The bad news is shaking makes you look like a terrified child. Your mind can blank out and you may forget your points suddenly. So what should you do?

- Don't stand too stiffly. Some good presenters actually choreograph their steps. They move to relax their body at the same time making sure they don't fidget. If your legs are shaking, take one small step backward (or forward) and make it a part of the presentation. Examiners will not know. (Moving forward can help examiners hear what you saying better.)

- Start confidently. I remembered I started my presentation with a mild joke. Examiners were laughing. Haha. It actually gave me a boost in confidence for the first few minutes, before I started to shake a bit towards the end. But of course, you do not need to share jokes. All you need to do is to say 'A very good morning to....' as confidently and convincingly as possible. (Make it loud too! But don't shout all right...)

- Look at the other members of the floor besides the examiners; look at your schoolmates! Smile at them. They will smile back at you. Of course, you guys need to socialize among yourselves beforehand. This is probably the most effective method to get rid of the body tremors. Have you noticed that you never really felt nervous when presenting your projects in front of your classmates as compared to in front of some middle-age (or older) examiners? There you go...

- Repeat the questions softly. My group members heeded this advice and it worked! When an examiner poses a question to you during the Q&A section, repeat it to yourself softly. This allows you to fully understand the question better. From there, ideas will start to flow.

2) Keep your slides neat and simple
On your slides, try not to make it wordy. Just keep the bullets and remove the details. Examiners have always said that they can read, which means that they only want to hear stuff which you haven't put up on the slides.

So my advice is, just put the bullets, so that u have points to talk about. A lot of the groups made the mistake of putting too much detail on their slides, and then merely rehashing it. Furthermore, the fact that examiners have to read less is only an added bonus.
-submitted by anonymous

3) Don't rush the Q&A section
Hello JC1s. You will probably experience how scary the Q&A section is firsthand during the dry run. Just a word of advice: no matter how tense you are, NEVER rush into the answer. Take your time, consider the question thoroughly, see what angle you can approach it from and then go into it.

Also, don't think in terms of 'short and sweet'. the examiners want well-elaborated and considered answers (but note: NOT BELABOURED POINTS)- link it to the rationale and purpose behind your project(s) if you can.
-submitted by steph
{p.s: Sorry if this comes across as pretentious but my group did get our A's so its pretty safe advice.}


View complete tips HERE.

SPECIAL: How To Do Well In Oral Presentation

I realized it would be nice of me (hehe) to share with my readers some useful tips for Oral Presentation. I am not going to inundate the whole page with a list of suggestions; instead, only key points will be shown here. All the information is gathered from the examiners' comments which was given back to the JC2s early this term.

1) Stress on key words
I noticed that examiners love it when students stress on key words. It is like a must-have for every good presentation. Let me give you two examples:
'Peter has played an instrumental role in establishing the company.'
'Not one or two were injured, but nearly a million civilians were affected.'
I do not have to teach you which words to stress on, do I?

2) Hand gestures
This is another important feature that you must incorporate into your speech to attain high scores. In fact, it would look great if you are able to combine the stress on key words with powerful and convincing hand gestures.
Take a look at this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAz-grHMhTE

3) Maintain eye contact
One mistake students frequently make is that they only tend to maintain eye contact with examiners. Not good enough! Your eyeballs should sweep across the room and you must establish eye contact with the other candidates there.
Bonus tip: Establish a friendship with the other TPJCians there. You will less stressful during the actual day. You can start by exchanging smiles.

4) Don't refer to cue cards
Examiners do not seem to like students who love to refer to their cue cards while presenting their projects. As far as possible, memorize at least 99% of the speech. 3 suggestions on how you can do that are shown below:
- Read to your pet or stuff toys in your bedroom at least four times everyday.
- Play the don't forget the lyrics lines! game yourself. Repeat the whole rehearsal every time you forget a part of the speech, even if you were approaching the end of it.
- Get a license and make a speech in the Speakers' Corner at Hong Lim Park one day. You will have no choice but to memorize all the lines or suffer humiliation. (I am actually joking regarding this one. But you can try if you wish too. Haha.)

5) Don't repeat!!!!!!!!!!
Never ever and even think of repeating any points (excessively) if an examiner poses a question at you. In other words, do not over emphasize on certain issues. It gives an impression to the examiner that you do not really know about your chosen topic widely enough.

And don't forget to smile. Smiling helps to erase 'stage fright'.
One more month and Project Work is over.