Some strategies to give an effective PowerPoint presentation for the 4th year student of English Faculty, Hanoi Open University

DECLARATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TABLE OF CONTENT INTRODUCTION 4 Rationale 4 Aims of the study 5 Scope of the study 6 Method of the study 6 Design of the study 6 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 8 1.1 Definition of PowerPoint presentation 8 1.2 The structure of a PowerPoint presentation 8 1.3 Types of presentations 9 1.3.1 Based on the presentation’s purpose 9 1.3.2 Based on the presentation’s manner 10 1.4 The importance of PowerPoint Presentation skill 11 CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 13 2.1 Survey on senior student’s habit of presenting 13 2.1.1 The subjects 13 2.1.2 Data collection 13 2.1.3 Questionnaire 13 2.2 The finding and discussion 14 CHAPTER 3: STRATEGIES TO GIVE AN EFFECTIVE POWERPOINT PRESENTATION 17 3.1 Good content 18 3.1.1 Determine the aims of the presentation 18 - Analyzing the audience 18 - Choosing and narrowing topic. 19 - Determining the purpose 19 3.1.2 Create an outline 20 3.2 Good design 21 3.2.1 Slide Structure 21 3.2.2 Fonts 23 3.2.2.1 Font types: 23 3.2.2.2 Font size: 24 3.2.3 Colors 26 3.2.4 Background 28 3.2.5 Charts 30 3.3 Good delivery 32 3.3.1 Audience’s attention 32 3.3.2 Nonverbal language 36 3.3.2.1 Gesture 36 Effective gestures: 37 Ineffective gestures: 38 3.3.2.2 Eye contact 39 - The power of eye contact 39 - What makes a speaker not have strong eye contact? 39 - How to use eye contact in presentation? 40 - Practise making eye contact 41 3.3.2.3 Voice 41 - Volume: 41 - Rate: 42 - Tone: 42 3.3.3 Signpost language. 43 - What is signpost language? 43 - The role of signpost language 43 - How to use signpost language in presentation? 44 3.3.4 Rehearsal 46 CONCLUSION 48 REFERENCES 49 APPENDIX 50 INTRODUCTION Rationale We are living in a modern society where communication skill is indispensable. Among different communication skills is public speaking skill which probably is the most difficult one. Ability of giving a good presentation is extremely important for those who want to success. When you are still on the school-desk, you need presentation skill to discuss or argue some point of view with your classmate. When you are at work, in the future, you need this skill to report your work to your colleagues and manager, or introduce and sell some product to your customers. If you are manager, presentation skill is even much more necessary. It helps you to success in negotiating with your partners or inspiriting your staffs. Together with technology development, MS PowerPoint program has also been developed. Today, it has become so popular. MS PowerPoint is a very strong tool supporting for presentations. A PowerPoint presentation delivers a message much more effectively than a normal oral presentation because it is a combination of words, pictures and sound. However, it is not everyone can give an effective PowerPoint presentation. A person who is able to make a good oral presentation can make a bad PowerPoint presentation due to his design mistakes. As a student at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University, I have given several PowerPoint presentations before classmates and I have also been an audience for many times. I see that even when we are senior students, we still rarely make an effective PowerPoint presentation. Hence, in this study I would like to focus on finding difficulties which senior students often meet and common mistakes they often do. “Some strategies to give an effective PowerPoint presentation for the 4th year student of English Faculty, Hanoi Open University” is a very helpful and interesting topic so I decided to choose it for my Graduation Paper. Aims of the study The objective of the work is to bring out some strategies which are helpful in giving an effective PowerPoint presentation for senior students of English Faculty, Hanoi Open University. There are many strategies for giving an effective PowerPoint Presentation but in this study, I would like to focus on finding what difficulties senior students usually meet and which mistakes they often do when giving a PowerPoint presentation. From that point, I would like to bring out some effective strategies to help students of English in general and the 4th year students of English at HOU in particular to overcome difficulties and avoid making mistakes. My study focuses on 3 steps: - Step 1: Overviews basic PowerPoint presentation knowledge. - Step 2: Presents a survey to get what exactly students find hard and which mistakes they often do when giving a PowerPoint presentation. - Step 3: Proposes effective ways of giving a PowerPoint presentation based on the result drawn from the survey. Scope of the study PowerPoint presentation is not a small field for research. Therefore, I would like to draw out some strategies of giving an effective PowerPoint presentation only. My research aimed at senior students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University. Method of the study In order to accomplish this thesis systematically and adequately, I have acquired all the literature resources from many sources of data such as the internet, magazines, newspapers and books in the Library of Faculty of English and Modern Languages, Hanoi Open University as well as the National Library. I implemented a survey with subjects who are senior students of English Faculty, Hanoi Open University. Personal observation consulted and discussed by my supervisor in the process of researching also contributed much to the completion of this thesis. Design of the study My study is divided into 3 main parts: 1. Introduction includes: Rationale Aims of the study Scope of the study Method of the study Design of the study 2. Development includes 3 chapters: Chapter 1: Literature review Definition of presentation Types of presentation The role of presentation skill Chapter 2: The study Habit of giving PowerPoint presentation of senior students of English Faculty, HOU The findings and discussion Chapter 3: Some strategies to give an effective PowerPoint presentation. 3. Conclusion and References summarizes all the main points in the whole graduation paper. CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Definition of PowerPoint presentation - What is a presentation? There are many definitions of presentation. Following are some typical definitions: - A presentation is a practice of showing and explaining the content of a topic to an audience or learner. - A presentation is a kind of communication between the speaker and the audience. - A presentation is a way of communicating ideas and information to a group. A presentation carries the speaker’s personality and allows immediate interaction between all the participants. - What is a PowerPoint presentation? A power point presentation is a presentation which is carried out with the support of PowerPoint, a presentation software program. 1.2 The structure of a PowerPoint presentation Like other kinds of presentation, a PowerPoint presentation includes three parts: The introduction: Greeting the audience. Tell your audience the topic of the presentation. Tell your audience the purposes of the presentation. Show your audience how the presentation will be developed. The body: Present the first key points. Use supporting ideas for this point. Present the second key points. Use supporting ideas for this point. And so on… The conclusion: State the main points again. Evaluate the importance of the information. Formulate some conclusions and/or recommendations. 1.3 Types of presentations 1.3.1 Based on the presentation’s purpose - Informative presentation: An informative presentation is a presentation on a realistic factual matter destined to raise the informative and cultural level of listeners. An informative presentation should be based upon a wide range of adequate and credible sources. - Persuasive presentation: A persuasive presentation is a speech aimed at influencing values, ideas, beliefs and attitudes of the audience. Pragmatically, a persuasive presentation is used to convince people to get a different idea, attitude and belief, react to something, consider doing things they were previously unwilling to do. - Entertaining presentation: Entertaining presentation focuses on the overall theme of the entertainment speechwriting occasion. The presentation is oriented to entertainment, so that the audience could get relaxed, react to the presentation in a hearty way, and enjoy every minute of the entertaining speech. - Inspirational presentation: Inspirational speech is a speech presented by a professional speaker or by a renowned authority/leader in front of large homogeneous audiences such as corporate staff, etc. in order to encourage them, reveal the true sense of leadership and enrich them with some approved formulae of commercial and professional success. 1.3.2 Based on the presentation’s manner - Written presentation: Written presentations may include story, manual, report, book, newspaper article, letter, diary (for one person), scroll, booklet, pamphlet (for small group), questionnaire, survey (for small or large group), advertisement and chart (for large group). - Oral presentation: Oral presentations may include interview, report, conversation (for one person), discussion group, seminar, debate (for small group), advertisement, lecture, talk show, song, debate, choral speech, lesson (for large group). - Visual presentation: Visual presentations may include project cube, page sized chart or diagram (for one person), cartoon, photographs, display (for small group), poster, timeline, web page, map, large diagram, puppet show, overheads (for large group). - Multimedia presentation: Multimedia presentation is a combination of written, oral and visual presentations, for example, a computer presentation such as Power Point presentation. 1.4 The importance of PowerPoint Presentation skill In today’s world, PowerPoint presentation skill is synonymous with presentation success of any kind! Thanks to Bill Gates and his team of professionals who developed MS PowerPoint, today most of us have access to what is considered a basic and most staple tool to effective presentations. No matter if you are a student or a professor or a business professional or even a scientist, if you are out there in this world, you need PowerPoint presentation skills to be successful. - PowerPoint Presentation skill for students These days, it is important for students to learn PowerPoint skills right from high school. With practice, by the time they reach university, they will have mastered the art of making effective presentations. Today, whether you are a graduate or an undergraduate student, most classes demand that you write papers and present them in front of the whole class. If you do not use effective tools to make presentations, you can forget getting great grades. Most professors expect you to know how to use the PowerPoint tool. This is especially important if you are a doctoral student. No thesis is marked complete without a final presentation to the faculty. Not knowing how to present effectively using this tool, could cost you your degree. - PowerPoint Presentation skill for professors In the event you are a professor, the importance of PowerPoint skills cannot be stressed enough. You need to know how to present effectively in order to keep the attention of the class. Using monotonous presentations will bore the class and affect their attention levels. Presentations need to be stimulating and interesting as students learn maximum though a combination of visual and auditory mode. Only then will students respond and retain information you wish to impart. - PowerPoint Presentation skill for business professionals Success in the business world depends mostly on presentation skills. The reasons for this are simple. Most businesses run on presentations. Be it internal presentations to your management about the status of a project or a sales presentation to a potential client, failing there could end up costing you your job. Business professional from all departments need to know how to present effectively. Whether you are training a group of new recruits or holding an advanced training session for a technical team; effective presentation is a key to success. These days’ professionals also have to use PowerPoint to relay information to their own team mates and colleagues. CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY This research focuses on the way senior students of English Faculty at Hanoi Open University give a PowerPoint presentation. Due to the course’s demand, each student must give PowerPoint presentation several times per school year. How to make an effective PowerPoint presentation is a problem that most students take care of. 2.1 Survey on senior student’s habit of presenting 2.1.1 The subjects 100 senior students (K13) of English Faculty, Hanoi Open University were randomly chosen for the project. All of them have ever given some PowerPoint presentations. 2.1.2 Data collection The survey which aims at collecting necessary data for the project consists of three steps: - Handing out questionnaires to subjects. - Deleting invalid cases. - Collecting the final number of the remaining valid and reliable cases. After deleting invalid cases, the number of remaining cases is 95. 2.1.3 Questionnaire This questionnaire is designed to survey the student’s habit of presenting: from the way they preparing, designing to giving a presentation. The first two questions of the questionnaire focus on finding which way students prepare for their presentation. The next three questions aim at finding out the way students design their presentation slides. The next three questions help me know their habit when giving presentation. And the last two questions will discover the difficulties student often encounter in presenting process. Through this survey, I can know exactly student’s difficulties as well as their common mistakes in giving a PowerPoint presentation. 2.2 The finding and discussion The following table shows us a clear result of the survey: Question Number  Answers    a  b  c   1   40  55   2  5  50  40   3  7  55  33   4  60  25  10   5  3  18  74   6  15  80    7  12  75  8   8   90  5   9   5  90   - Nearly half of the students (40 out of 95) create an outline after choosing a topic while the rest carry out materials collection immediately. All of them do not find it important to determine the purpose of their presentation. This is like that they are going without a destination. Their presentation without a specific purpose will be discursive and boring. - More than half of the students (55 out of 95) think that it is not or not too important to create an outline. Even when they have had a destination (a specific purpose), if they have no map (outline), they can not reach their destination in the best way. In case that they do not have both destination and map, where will they go to? - Only 7 students rarely use font styles. More than half sometimes use it and 33 one always. This is also a problem! Using no font styles make your presentation less interesting but abusing them can break the presentation. - There are still 35 students (out of 95) think that more backgrounds more interesting the presentation is. They have put slide decoration at a higher position than delivering their message. - More than half of the students (74 out of 95) always use illustrations. This makes a problem! Although illustration enhances the message, using them a lot can distract the audience. - Almost student (80 out of 95) thinks that it is most important to introduce clearly the topic in the introduction. Just 15 students know that getting the audience’s attention is more important. Introducing the topic is important, but if you do not get the audience’s attention right after starting, you can lose them. - Just 8 students always use signpost language during their presentation, the rest rarely or sometimes use it. Signpost language is very important for the audience to catch what you say. Therefore, the students should learn how to use signpost language to deliver their message more effectively. - Most of the students (90 out of 95) do not know what to do with their hands and afraid of looking at the audience. This means body language is one of their weak points. They should pay more time to learn this skill. - More than half of the students (55 out of 95) often forget what to say while the rest often stammer. This is because they do not have enough practice. We can draw out from the result of the survey the following things: - The common mistakes that senior students often do are preparation, design, starting the presentation. - The difficulty that senior students often meet is using body language. CHAPTER 3: STRATEGIES TO GIVE AN EFFECTIVE POWERPOINT PRESENTATION Efficiency of a PowerPoint presentation depends on three main elements which are: Content Design Delivery
 The content of your presentation should be relevant, convincing and clear. This depends on your preparation. The design of your presentation should enhance the message and visually please. Your delivery should be relaxed, confident and engaging. This depends on your ability to use both verbal and nonverbal language and your practice. 3.1 Good content As I mentioned above, good or bad content depends on your preparation. If you fail to prepare, you are prepared to fail. Unlike everyday conversation, presentations have a clear purpose and a logical structure. Therefore, in order to give an effective presentation it is necessary to prepare carefully. Thorough preparation will also reduce ones anxiety during the actual presentation. The survey’s result shows that the preparation of most students includes only two steps: choosing a topic that they like and collecting materials. They rarely determine the aim of their presentation as well as create an outline. This makes their materials collection not effective and their presentation not have a focus. How can the audience get the message when the students themselves do not know exactly what they want to deliver? So what steps should you take to assure a successful talk and to make it worth the time of the audience and yourself? Following is what you need to do: 3.1.1 Determine the aims of the presentation - Analyzing the audience Audience analysis is important because: Audiences are egocentric. They do not care how important what you are saying is, but whether it is related to them. Audiences will judge a speech based on what they already know and believe. Therefore, you should try to collect information about the audience as much as possible to choose a right topic and collect suitable materials. It helps you to know how to meet the audience’s demand and how to draw their attention. To do audience analysis, you need to collect information to answer these questions: - What is your audience’s needs/interests? - How much they know about the topic? - What misconception might they have? - What terms and concept will they probably not understand? - Choosing and narrowing topic. You have had your audience’s information about what their needs/interests are. Now you can decide what your presentation is about. Don’t try to include too much information in your presentation because your audience has a limited memory. You should narrow the topic. For example: Choose a topic: My presentation is about divorce rate. Narrow it: My presentation is about divorce rate in Vietnam. Choose a topic: My presentation is about finding job. Nar