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Have you ever experienced the all too often death by PowerPoint? Or maybe, you were the guilty party during a presentation massacre. Guess what, it doesn’t have to be that way. You can prepare awesome presentations that will enhance and engage your audience. You just need to follow a few simple principles to create great PowerPoint presentations that even Tom Antion can enjoy. So, read and apply the following tips to your presentations to capture your audience’s attention every time.

#1 – Remember Who’s the Show

Your PowerPoint is not the show. Your audience came to hear you and that’s what they want. Don’t disappoint your audience give them what they want. Prepare your PowerPoint to enhance your presentation not replace it.

#2 – Limit Your Slide Text
The biggest problem with most slides is the content; there is way too much text. Don’t try to place all your information on your slides. It turns your presentation into a boring reading assignment. It turns you into a boring speaker and you will lose your audience. Keep the text on your slides to a minimum and deliver the message yourself.

#3 – Keep Your Slides Simple

PowerPoint is so amazing that you can become mesmerized by all the bells and whistles available to you. There are animations, sounds and special effects galore. But, you don’t need to use everything in one PowerPoint. Simple slides with few special effects are usually the best. A slide with only a picture (that relates to your message) and one keyword can be very engaging. Try it, you will be surprised.

#4 – Choose Your Fonts Wisely

It is very important that when you do use text that it be readable. It needs to be large, the right color and the right font. The size of your fonts should be large and bold. If you are using a small font to get everything on a slide you have too much text. The color of your font should contrast with your background color like black on white or white on blue. However, you should avoid colors like red, yellow, orange or black for backgrounds.

Also, you should avoid using too many fonts. Choose a serif font (like Arial) and a sans serif (like Times New Roman) that will complement each other. Save fancy fonts for the title slide or the ending slide.

#5 – Use Pictures and Graphics

Pictures and graphics must be colorful and large. Your pictures should be at least 50 percent of your slide with limited text. Your slide engage and attract your audience not bore them. Appropriate pictures and graphics (not clip art) are your most effective types of content, especially pictures of people your audience knows.

#6 – Use Video

Insert video into your PowerPoint for a change of pace, especially if your presentation is a long one. A good video from You Tube or a similar site can be used to add humor or relief from the usual routine. Or even better create some of your own videos.

#7 – Tell a Story

People enjoy stories and will be much more receptive to what you have to say if you have captured their attention with a story. Stories help you connect with your audience and get them to accept you and your message. So, make sure that your content, slides and pictures tell a story.

When teaching the present progressive, or continuous, tense, we often concentrate on structure: you have a subject, followed by the auxiliary, “be” followed by the “-ing” form of the verb. A lot of teachers have started calling this verb “the -ing verb”, and rightly so, as I am convinced that virtually nobody can say for sure what the correct term for it is.

Would you call it the gerund? No, because the gerund is the noun derived from a verb, not a verb itself. Here we have a completely different discussion, and another lesson to prepare. You probably do a free time/interests lesson where you ask the question “what do you like doing?”. Your students have the opportunity to practise real gerunds, as in sentences like, “I like playing football, going skiing, painting, reading, shopping...”

You, of course, as a serious ESL professional, know that in a sentence like “I am having a shower”, the “-ing” verb is actually the present participle. Are we sure about that?

participles or adjectives?

If I say, “I am tired”, I know that “am” is the verb and that “tired” is obviously an adjective, given that “to be” is a verb of state, and an adjective is used to add detail to a noun, in this case a pronoun, “I”. But tired is also the past participle of the verb “to tire”. Just as past participles can be used as adjectives, so can present participles: The match was tiring, this film is boring” etc. Expressions like “running water” or “living space” contain “-ing” adjectives.

When saying “I am” we are invariably talking about a present state, so what’s the difference between “I am tired”, and “I am working”? To say “I am working” also indicates my present state, even if technically speaking “working” is the present participle, not an adjective. Interestingly, in French there is no present progressive tense, they use an adjectival phrase which translates, “I am in the process of to work”. A fine line indeed between adjectives and participles!

All these thoughts have led me to believe that they should not discussed with your students, being indeed pointless grammatical debate that will not help them one little bit to communicate more effectively. Instead of trying to have your students build sentences from pre-defined parts, i.e. aux + verb+ing = present progressive = something happening now why not make a mind map of all the possible things we could say starting with “I am”. After all, “I am English” is a present, just like “I am working”. You could brainstorm emotions, physical condition, nationalities, age, jobs, and what is happening now. This way, rather than focussing on meaningless grammatical structure, you are giving your students functional language that they can use outside the classroom.

Any good presenter knows the importance of keeping the audience the focal point of the presentation. To be successful, a presenter has to understand not only his or her own subject, but what the audience already knows about it, what they are hoping to learn, and even possible misconceptions that might stand in the way of their understanding or reaching common ground. It isn’t enough to just keep the audience in mind as you gather your materials and decide on content. To really move and motivate an audience with a presentation, you’ll need to be aware of how the audience is responding to you in the moment.

Emotional intelligence is sometimes defined as the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s self empathetically and appropriately; and to be able to use emotional information to guide behavior. How then is emotional intelligence used to strengthen presentation skills?

Next time you get ready to present, think about how you and your audience are responding to each other and how you can make use of that information to enhance your performance and your results. Some guides to consider:

BUILD IN TIME TO READ YOUR AUDIENCE: This sounds easier than it is. Many presenters think mostly (if not exclusively) about their own performance during a presentation. They understandably want that presentation to go smoothly and without mishap, so are focused on remembering details of what they planned to say, as well as how to get from point to point without missing anything. Master presenters, however, know the test of a great presenter isn’t whether the delivery proceeded without hesitation or that everything you thought you might include was delivered. The emotionally intelligent presenter is aware of the audience’s reaction. Make it a point in every presentation to gauge audience reaction as often as you can. You can do this either by literally stopping occasionally and asking for feedback (“Does this make sense”? “Everyone agree?” ) or you can simply build in pauses that allow you to gauge reaction yourself.

YOUR AUDIENCE IS COMMUNICATING WITH YOU IF YOU LISTEN: Audience feedback is often subtle, which is why for many presenters, it’s easy to overlook. Many audiences won’t interrupt your presentation or offer you the kind of verbal feedback that lets you know how you’re being received. The emotionally intelligent presenter checks for non-verbal signs. Are they maintaining eye contact? Are expressions neutral? Interested? Is body language open? Or are they shifting constantly in their seats, avoiding eye contact and giving you other signs of disinterest or disagreement?

TALK BACK: The point of being aware of audience reaction is to react to it. If you sense you might be losing your audience, don’t ignore the signs. Stop and react. If you sense boredom or disinterest, don’t stick to your script. You might quicken your pace or even skip ahead to a different section of your presentation. (“Why don’t we move ahead to some action items.”) If you sense disagreement, you might react in turn by testing the resistance. “I can see there’s some skepticism. Anyone want to offer some reaction?” That will give you a clue as to whether the resistance or reaction is shared by others or an isolated problem you identified and can quickly address.

TAKE IT IN STRIDE: The purpose of getting audience feedback is to increase your chances of successful communication. Don’t take any negative feedback you get personally, even if you disagree with it or think it unfair. You might even end the presentation portion early in order to devote more time to the q and a section of the presentation, to make sure you’re addressing your audience’s concerns. (I can guarantee that no one will complain about not enough slides, handouts, or data once you’ve gotten through the basics of the presentation.) Keep your additional materials on hand in case someone asks a specific question the additional data can help you explain, but let the audience guide you in when and how much to use.

Emotional Intelligence is now identified as a crucial leadership skill. Remember that displaying it, proving your ability to connect with others right in front of them, will do far more in proving your leadership ability than all the slides, charts and graphs you could possibly display.