At some point in your life in your school or college or career, you will likely speak in front of many people and present yourself and showcase your research or project.
Whether you are presenting your research or project or pitching an idea, it’s necessary to possess strong presentation skills which will help you to convey a clear message to your audience.
So let’s understand more about presentation skills and why you need them.
What are Presentation Skills?
Presentation skills help to convey the right information or message to an audience.
A person who possesses strong presentation skills does the following things:-
● Does topic research and get all the background information.
● Writes a well-organised speech on the topic.
● Incorporates visuals such as slides, videos and graphics in order to keep the audience engaged.
● Use storytelling in order to connect with the audience.
● Memorise their key points without the need for the script.
● Use the right body language that showcases them as a confident speaker.
● Make good use of Interaction throughout the presentation, in order to keep the audience engaged.
● Deliver their presentation naturally.
How Students Can Improve Their Presentation Skills?
Below are some amazing tips for improving presentation skills.
1. Present Useful Information
While creating a presentation, know what information the audience is looking for? Unique information which they will hardly get from the internet should be provided in order to keep them engaged and interested in your presentation.
Getting information about your audience in advance such as who will be seeing the presentation, questions or concerns if any or what are they expecting or what will matter to them will help to create the best presentation.
2. Learn From the Experts
Attend live presentations of effective speakers or see a lot of videos of them in order to get some strategies from them so that you can use them while doing your own presentation.
3. Memorise the Presentation
Using cue cards and the script will make your audience feel that you are not much aware of the topic and have prepared a lot to speak. Make the audience feel that they are listening to a speaker who is highly aware of the topic and the content you are speaking is naturally flowing and not scripted.
Dubai schools ask students to memorise presentations or make loose outlines of the topic. Doing research and reading more about the topic helps to understand the concept which helps in explaining it to others better and helps the content to flow naturally.
4. Practice Using a Mirror
While practising your presentation, use a mirror to see your body language as it will help you to improve, and have more control over how to present and make changes. Recording it is another way to see mistakes and figure out ways to improve.
Take note of your overall body language such as posture, eye contact, etc.
5. Think of It as an Opportunity
Most of us get overwhelmed with the thought of presenting things to others which results in more stress. Instead, we should think of it as an opportunity to present, pass on important information to others, convey ideas and the opportunity to meet and impress others.
6. Give Yourself Time to Prepare
Arriving in your presentation room early will help you to be ready and it will give you enough time to arrange your set-up, devices and displays, etc. In short, you will feel more calm, relaxed and confident and be more ready to slay your presentation.
7. More Visuals and Less Text
Audiences like to see more visual presentations so use as little text as possible. The text information should be conveyed orally. Use slides, statistics, data, and graphs which are easy to understand and require less text information to understand. Short videos are another way to keep your audience engaged and pass the right information or message.
8. Practice Positive Thinking
As it is one way to motivate yourself. Do not think about your weakness or challenges or other negative things that stop or discourage you.
Talk to yourself and remind yourself that you are doing great and keep working on yourself and put that time and effort to make and present a quality presentation.
9. Stay on Topic
Most of the time presentations are stretched and the biggest culprit is the irrelevant topics which are mixed up which makes audiences confused and they will not get a clear message from the presentation.
The attention span of humans is less so it is always advised to keep the presentation short but make sure to cover all important points and not add irrelevant topics or points.
10. Solve Queries
Always keep follow-up or queries solving sessions as most of the time the audience may want to clear their doubts or may want to know the things which you have not covered. This will make your presentation interactive and engaging.
11. Connect With Your Audience
Begin your presentation with a normal chat or conversation with the audience to make the atmosphere light. Help the audience to get settled and comfortable so that you can connect better.
12. Speak Slow and Make Use of Voice Modulations and Embrace Pauses
These 3 things help the audience to grasp the concept easily. It also creates the right atmosphere.
13. Practice and Practice
Nothing is better than keep practising as it will make you more confident and help you deliver the presentation smoothly. Take the help of friends and families and present to them and take feedback from them.
14. Incorporate Some Story Related to the Topic and Add Humour
The story will make the audience relate to it and humour will lighten the mood and keep them interested in what you have to say.
15. Dressing Game
While presenting in front of others, make sure to dress comfortably, yet professionally as it will make you more confident.
16. Summarise Your Main Thoughts
At the end of your presentation, make sure to do a quick recap of all of the main points that you covered as it will help your audience remember the presentation.
Conclusion
Presenting an idea or project or research to an audience in a persuasive manner is an art everyone should learn. Practising, refining and improving upon your presentation skills will make you grow in Dubai secondary school, career and life.
Lastly, the keynote from this article is, that the more comfortable you are with taking the stage and holding on to everyone’s attention, the less nervous you’ll feel. And all that will come with practising more and more.
