Take a Trip

Go to each country and watch a famous speaker. Look for specific presentation skills you can use!

  1. First, read the presentation skills help on this page.
  2. Watch two minutes of Peter Smith giving a student help.
  3. Then, take your trip to each country. Watch 2 minutes of each presentation and look for the speaking using hand gestures, pausing their voice strategically, and engaging the audience.
  4. At the end of each country visit, write your opinion on the feedback wall.
  5. Finally, return to this page and record a 30 second video practicing a little from one of the speeches on the Flipgrid at the end of the page. Try gesturing and pausing.
  6. Give feedback to help others and enjoy sharing your practice! Have fun!

Presentation Skills

Gestures

Use your hands. Big gestures show confidence. Small gestures show lack of confidence. You do not have to use gestures all the time, but use hand gestures to make points. When watching the speechs on this trip, look for how the speakers use their hands.

Voice

Pause and use vocal range. Do not talk too fast. Watch how the speakers pause. They stop talking sometimes. They do not talk so fast all the time. They sometimes slow down and sometimes speed up. They also use voice range. Peter Smith explains vocal range below.

Engage the Audience

Eye contact and making jokes. Look at the audience and enjoy time with them. Watch how the speakers look at the audience when talking. In one video, the speaker has notecards. However, she mostly does not talk while looking at the notecard. It is fine to look at your notecard, but do not talk while looking are your notecards. Enjoy your time speaking TO your audience.

Peter Smith

Watch for:

Watch 2 minutes of the speech from 9:05 to 11:10. He will talk about how to make a good presentation.

  • Use gestures; to make impact!
  • Use the range of your voice; to make impact!
  • Notice the student tells a joke at the beginning. She says that she will throw a 4th of July party, not on the 4th of July. The 4th of July is a holiday in America. Everyone celebrates it on July 4th. It is funny to think of a July 4th party not on July 4th.

Practice!

Learner Description

This page is for English as a Second Language learners in a University program who are studying presentation skills.