Languages Discipline, Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education

Lesson 2: Persuasive Presentations Overview (2)

Learning Objectives: By the end of this lesson, you should be able to: recognise the qualities of a good presenter; adopt the audience-centred approach for your presentation; use appropriate body language and eye contact when making a presentation; and use abbreviations and acronyms appropriately. Qualities of a good presenter

Task 1

Watch Graham Hills presentation on Less Stuff, More Happiness again. Work with a partner and evaluate the presenter s performance using the following evaluation form.

Evaluation Form
Performance Agree Disagree

A) Purpose
1. The purpose of the presentation was clear. 2. The purpose of the presentation was achieved.

B) Organisation
3. The main ideas were previewed in the introduction. 4. The introduction caught the audiences attention. 5. The main ideas were developed fully and logically. 6. Transitions and signposting expressions were used. 7. The main ideas were restated and a closing was given in the conclusion.

C) Delivery
8. He maintained appropriate eye contact with the audience. 9. He used appropriate stress and intonation. 10. He used appropriate pausing, pace and volume. 11. He used gestures appropriately. 12. He used an effective visual aid.
Source: http://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hill_less_stuff_more_happiness.html

You can be a good presenter too! Take the following actions now: watch some good presentations and learn from the presenters; practise giving presentations and obtain feedback from your audience; make adjustments or improvement upon receiving the feedback. Page 1 of 10

Lesson 2 LAN4108 E&C: Persuasive Presentations (EG) Student Package

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Task 2

Using the audience-centred approach

A presentation is an audience-centred activity. So, instead of asking what you can do for your audience, you should be asking what your audience need from you. When doing so, you should also take into consideration their background, attitudes and expectation. Task 2a The following are comments from the audience of a presentation which gave advice on environmentally-friendly design ideas to designers from different fields. In pairs, analyse the comments and discuss what could have happened in the presentation.

Audiences comments on the Green Design Ideas Presentation by Edward Hunt, Creative Director of TrueLiving
I like the green design ideas but Ive heard them so many times before. Theres nothing new in this presentation. Its quite disappointing. The suggestions sound okay, but has anyone tried them before? Do they really work? I wish I knew all the abbreviations and acronyms that he was using. I was lost. I doubt that he knows our field of design. His idea may not work for us. I dont buy his ideas. Its just a hard sell presentation.

e.g. The presenter may not have considered the audiences background knowledge on the topic and may have presented information that the audience knew already.

So, what was wrong with the presentation on the whole? __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________

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Languages Discipline, Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education

Task 2b If you want to persuade the audience effectively, you should first analyse their needs and expectations, and customise your message accordingly. Presentations on the same topic should be structured and delivered differently if you are presenting to different types of audience. Study the types of audience and identify audience-centred approach to persuade them. Type of audience Favourable Example Presenting a brand new product to the loyal customers of your company Sceptical Presenting a customer survey report which contains many surprising figures Unfavourable Presenting a design proposal which entails a very high budget to your boss the appropriate

Approach (A-C)

Audience-centred Approach (A) Anticipate questions that the audience may have and answer them before they are asked. Build your credibility with evidence. Illustrate your ideas with real, relevant examples, or examples from a credible source, or facts that they already know. Acknowledge your audiences opposing point of view. Consider using a lot of facts and evidence to refute misperceptions they may hold. Be realistic in what you expect to accomplish and do not expect a major change in your audiences attitude. Acknowledge the audiences interest and identify with your audience. Be more explicit in telling them in your conclusion what you would like them to do.

(B)

(C)

Note: Being audience-centred does not mean that you should say only what your audience want to hear or make up information just to please your audience. You must be ethical when you are trying to achieve the objectives of your presentation. You can fine-tune the language you use for different audiences but you cannot distort any facts to suit their needs. The ways of handling sceptical and unfavourable audiences may be quite similar, but clearly it requires more efforts for the presenter to persuade the unfavourable audience. For example, the presenter will have to be more sensitive when handling negative emotions and more tactful when selling a point.

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Languages Discipline, Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education

Task 2c Work in groups and read the following comments from Task 2a again. For each comment, identify the attitude of the audience and suggest the possible improvement on the presentation. Share your ideas with the class.

I like the green design ideas but Ive heard them so many times before. Theres nothing new in this presentation. Its quite disappointing.

Type: ________________________________________ Improvement: ________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________

The suggestions sound okay, but has anyone tried them before? Do they really work?

Type: _______________________________________ Improvement: ________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________

I dont think he knows our field of design. His idea may not work for us.

Type: _______________________________________ Improvement: ________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________

I dont buy his ideas. Its just a hard sell presentation. Type: _______________________________________ Improvement: _______________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________

Task 2d Listen to three extracts of the presentation and suggest which type of audience each extract targets. Extract one: Extract two: Extract three: Lesson 2 LAN4108 E&C: Persuasive Presentations (EG) Student Package Page 4 of 10

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Task 2e Read the following questions first, then put down the answers as you listen to the extracts the second time.

Extract one: 1. In the beginning of the extract, which phrase did the presenter use to identify with the audience who are sceptical about green designs? _______________________________ some green designs look good but are not very practical. 2. The presenter gave two pieces of evidence to support the green design ideas. What are they? ________________________________ _______________________________ 3. How would the audience feel if the presenter introduced only the green ideas without providing any supporting evidence? ________________________________ _______________________________

Extract two: 4. How did the presenter acknowledge the audiences interest? Jot down the phrase used. ______________________________ protecting the environment is everybodys business and our design should be sustainable. 5. What action did the presenter ask the audience to take? ______________________________ ______________________________ ______________________________
Note: You will have to fine-tune the objective of your presentation according to your audiences attitudes towards your topic. If you can anticipate strong opposing views from your audience, asking them to change their minds completely to support your topic may be too ambitious and unrealistic. Instead, you may just want to show them that your idea is an alternative to be considered. However, if your audience is supportive, you can take a more direct approach and tell them exactly what you want them to do.

Extract three: 6.

What did the presenter say to state the common goal which designers have? People may have ________________________________ green design concepts, ______________________________________________ two common goals.

7.

What evidence did the presenter give to support his argument? ___________________________________________________________________________

8.

What was the presenters goal when presenting to an audience with unfavourable attitude towards green design? A. To persuade the audience that they should take action and visit his companys website. B. To persuade the audience that they can make green designs more practical. C. To persuade the audience that designing green products is now easier and more rewarding.

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Languages Discipline, Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education

Task 3

Using appropriate body language

Just as words form the spoken language, how you stand and how you move your body form your body language. Your body language sends physical messages to your audience. In a persuasive presentation, you should send a confident, positive, energetic and enthusiastic message to your audience. Task 3a Watch a video on body language and complete the table below. Movement 1) How to do it? 2) What is/are the function(s)? The confidence stance The placator 1) Stand straight, hand crossed in the front and feel comfortable 2) To present a confident image 1) ___________________________ raise your eyebrows and 3) How does it look like? (Sketch the movement)

2) To ask your audience to ________ ________________ and to make them want to agree with you The leveller 1) ________________________ 2) To make your audience instantly ________________________________ and the audience will not question what you are saying The thinker 1) ____________________________ 2) To _________________ when answering questions from the audience and to show the audience that ________ ______________ The joker 1) Throw your arms all over and stick out your belly slightly 2) To make sure that the audience ________________________________ Hands up 1) Put up your hand, stand on tiptoes and raise your eyebrows 2) To get _____________ from your audience and to get __________ responses
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNBogFOHjcY

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Languages Discipline, Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education

Task 3b Work in pairs. You should take turns to act out 5 of the phrases below for your partner to guess. You can tick the box of the correct guess. You have 3 minutes to prepare. (1) There are three causes to the problem (3) The point Id like to emphasise is (2) In the first partthe second part and the third part (4) Lets take a look at this graph here.

(5) The screen of this mobile phone is huge! (7) Both figures should be equal.

(6) The new notebook computer is really thin! (8) The demand has been greater than before.

(9) This product is a mix of creativity and practicality.

(10) That is not what were trying to do.

Task 4

Maintaining good eye contact

Maintaining good eye contact with your audience helps you build rapport with them, makes your presentation more convincing and keeps your audience interested. Presenting without eye contact will create a very negative impact on your audience and harm your credibility. You should try your best to maintain good eye contact with your audience throughout the whole presentation although you may need to divert your gaze momentarily when referring to your notes or visual aids. Task 4a If you were one of the members in the audience of a presentation, how would you like the presenter to look at you?

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Languages Discipline, Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education

Task 4b Work in groups of 4-5. Each of you should prepare a 1-minute speech on your latest design/design project using the note card at the bottom of this page. Follow the instructions below to maintain good eye contact with your group members. Audience: Raise your hand when the presenter makes good eye contact with you. Keep your hand up as long as the presenter keeps eye contact. As soon as the presenter looks away, lower your hand. Lower your hand if the presenter doesnt have good eye contact, looks over your head, looks at the ceiling, or looks at any place but in your eyes. There should only be one hand in the air at any time.

establish eye contact with the entire audience, not just one or two of them. use your eye contact to connect with your group members; Look at each of them for at least 2-3 seconds. look at each of your group members in the eye so that you can tell the colour of his/her eye ball. move your glance from member to member naturally.

read from your script. look up at the ceiling (because it makes you look like you don t know what to say). look out of the window or stare at the back of the room (because it makes your group members feel that you are not interested in them).

My design/ design project: _________________________________ Features/functions:

Target users:

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Languages Discipline, Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education

Task 5

Presentation Essentials

Use abbreviations and acronyms appropriately

You should use words which are familiar to the audience, based on what you know about your audiences interests and knowledge of the topic. If you use an abbreviation (short form of a word or phrase) or acronym (first-letter abbreviations for longer terms) which your audience does not understand, they will feel lost and become uninterested in your presentation. In general, abbreviations and acronyms should be defined when they are mentioned the first time in the presentation, unless you are absolutely sure that all members of the audience know them already. You may use the following expressions to introduce abbreviations/acronyms: HKDI stands for the Hong Kong Design Institute. Applications, also known as apps, have become a hot topic in the mobile phone industry. GUI means graphic user interface. Task: The following are abbreviations/acronyms you want to use when you present your design ideas to your English teacher. Highlight the abbreviations/acronyms which you will need to define. AI (Adobe Illustrator) DPI (Dots per inch) EBook (Electronic book) Lab (Laboratory) PPI (Pixels per inch) CTP (Computer to Plate) DRM (Digital Rights Management) EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) PMS (Pantone Matching System) URL (Uniform Resource Locator)

Note: Do not make up abbreviations/acronyms on your own. When in doubt, check a good dictionary or reference book.

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USEFUL EXPRESSIONS 1. 2. Identifying with the audience Just like most of you, I believe that I know we would all agree that Acknowledging the opposite views I guess well have to admit that some green designs are not very practical. You may have different views about green design concepts, but Im aware that green designs may entail extra costs

3. Defining terms AI stands for artificial intelligence. PPC means pay per click.

USEFUL VOCABULARY Words/Phrases 1 2 3 4 5 6 an-ti-ci-pate cus-tom-ise ex-plic-it ges-ture re-fute scep-ti-cal Meaning to realise beforehand; foretaste or foresee to modify or build according to individual or personal specifications or preferences fully and clearly expressed or demonstrated a movement or position of the hand, arm, body, head, or face that is expressive of an idea, opinion, emotion, etc. to prove to be false or erroneous showing doubt

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