IFY<\/a> students are currently working to prepare group presentations that they will give next week. We’ve got a lot of wonderful topics to look forward to – from the UN to Chemical Bonding – and our EAP teachers are reading up furiously so that they can ask lots of intelligent questions.<\/p>\nPresentations and working in groups are big parts of academic study in university today. Presentations allow the students to show their knowledge and group work encourages collaboration and a collegial spirit. These are vital skills that will stand to them when they leave university. For instance, if you look at research papers today, the majority are collaborations – academics working together to complete bigger projects than they can finish alone.<\/p>\n
Having given (and watched) a lot of presentations over the years, these would be my top 5 tips:<\/h2>\n
1. Know your stuff – do a lot of reading, watch videos, think of questions that people might ask you. If you can think of a relevant question and you don’t know the answer then look it up.
\n2. Focus – you don’t need to be an expert on everything. It is better to know a lot about one thing than to know a little about a lot of things.
\n3. Keep it simple – you want the audience to enjoy themselves and follow your talk. Trying to pack in too much detail, too many ideas and too much jargon will give the audience a headache.
\n4. Smile – you might feel nervous but that doesn’t mean you have to look nervous. It can be really, really difficult to talk in front of other people (especially in a different language) but a smile might help both you and the audience relax.
\n5. Pace yourself – the most common mistake is to speak too quickly. In my first presentation, I spoke at a hundred miles an hour and people couldn’t follow me at all.<\/p>\n
Best of luck to all of our IFY students – we’re looking forward to hearing your presentations next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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