Oral Presentation - engaging the audience

[siddhartharora]

G'day!

Was wondering if people could throw up some ideas on how to start off a presentation with a BANG sorta thing?

Not too keen on asking a question to the audience to begin my presentation, as its quite a common trend. Looking at something unique.

My topic is 'Gambling advertisements should be banned in sport (broadcasting/at events)'.

I've thought up of something like giving odds on a subject before the presentation, quickly halfway through the presentation and maybe at the end of the presentation. But unsure what odds I could talk about, not seriously, but as a humorous statement to engage audience and make affirm the annoyance of gambling advertisements (this one is a bit hard to explain!)

Any thoughts or advice would be great

[Merlyn]

Anecdotes and rhetorical questions always make a great start. (￣▽￣)

[McFleurry]

Humour always helps

[Yang Li]

Hey there,

The best thing to do in the oral presentation is actually to introduce the issue first. Many students forget this important step and miss out on the marks allocated to it. You should then move on directly to your contention in a clear and concise manner.

Other than getting your script out nice and early, a great idea that seems counter-intuitive is to practice in front of a mirror to work on your manner of delivery. Work on:

1) posture
2) projection of your voice
3) pausing at the right places
4) pacing your speech
5) getting rid of umms and errrs

Feel free to ask me questions on my thread (50 in English).

Remember - be confident!

Best of luck,

Yang

[Lolly]

Hey there, I did my English oral a few weeks ago.

As I see it, the persuasive oral is kind of like an inverse language analysis. It's supposed to show how well you understand persuasive devices and the extent to which you are able to effectively utilise them. As such you should try to put all of that metalanguage to practice. Adopt a tone, employ rhetorical questions and use repetition to reinforce your point. Connect with the audience with inclusive language; invoke concern over their financial status; cite statistic or evidence; appeal to the greater good.  That's what a persuasive piece is all about.

Since it is an oral, 50% of your grade really comes down to the delivery, so practice thoroughly. Know your speech well enough so that you only need to glance occasionally down at your cue cards. You're not reading out chapters from your textbook, you're giving a speech.

In terms of beginning the oral, my topic was asylum seekers, so to establish empathy I gave a little spiel placing the audience in their shoes.  Also, do know that there's a lot that can be done with pacing and varied sentence length to capture the audience's attention.  In my conclusion I really emphasised repetition with phrases like " I challenge you. I challenge you to....etc" while maintaining eye contact (... staring into Mrs S's soul....)

All the best for your oral!