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Giving Presentations

This guide will help you design and deliver an effective presentation. It's full of tips for both beginners, who need to learn the basics of delivering a presentation, as well as students who want to perfect their presentation skills.

Tips for Engaging your Audience

  • Start with an attention grabber! Ask a rhetorical question, share a story, a statistic, a headline or image related to your topic.
     
  • Maintain eye contact with your audience. Maintaining eye contact shows confidence and is much more engaging for your audience.
     
  • If you use notes, write them down in point form. Try not to look down at notes as much as possible. Remember, you are talking to your audience not reading! 
     
  • Adapt to people's expressions . Do they look confused? Clarify your point and be open to questions. Do they look bored? Maybe you need to vary your tone. 
     
  • Prepare an activity. Activities can be simple. For example, you could ask the class to spend 30 minutes talking to the person next to them about a question you pose, and ask students to report back on their discussion.