Now we move on to Preparation Advices for Excellent Presentations. From the beginning, I would like to say when you are adjusting your space, you presentation, this is the first thing I want you guys to do. Do more research on the general background of your audience, their age, their gender, their academic background, which determines what kind of language you use. And their religious belief, you don't want to violate with their religious belief. Also, you want to find out what are their major concerns? They [COUGH] could be concerning about some current issues, or they have some long term concerns. If you want your special presentation to be relevant to them, you need to keep all this in mind, what they care most about. And also, when you are trying to make them interested, you may start by talking about sports, or weather, or anything that you think they probably would like. This will always work if you find out there's something they have in common, like the British like to talk about weather. So many time they need to talk about the weather, all the time. If you have a bunch of students, and they are coming to your presentation, you may find out they have some major current concerns, the task. If you want to make fun of them. It is always good topics. I mean, if you put your heart into your preparation for these speeches, you will find out that you must have something, something that you can persuade your audience with. Spend more time on finding images and data. The first advice is that the PowerPoint slides production. Some of my students think that is a hard task, but for many of us and also many of business professionals they have already, have built up this PowerPoint templates as a database actually. You need to collect all kind of templates, you like it or not, sometimes you may use it. I mean, there are even professional templates producers. They sell those templates and there are also some artists they want to share with their products for free. If you search online, you will find out there's a whole bunch of them. But the point is that some of my students, they never think about this. They just put up very simple elements in and then they complain that their slides are not beautiful. Then this is something you need to do in the very beginning. And then collect and classify images, I mean, pictures and photos. Well, you want to use it and then you find out that wow, you don't have a collection. So this is a day by day collection habit. If any time that you run into good pictures, save it. And then another job you need to do, you need to also classify those images into different folders or otherwise you have saved a lot of tons of pictures but it's hard for you to use them. Classify them. Like these are for academics, these are for fun, and these are for sports, these are for people, whatever. If you keep on doing this you'll find out that your slides are more beautiful. And also, form this a good habit that you need to memorize some good data, some basic facts. The population of your nation, how big is your country? And the year when you were born, what were the biggest world events, issues? Did you check that out? I mean, there should be something that's always in your active memory. And believe me that you are not the one who can speak everything you have prepared during a presentation or speech. People come up with ideas when they talk, and if they are already a lot of good data, exact numbers in your mind, and then you can easily come out with some good data. I mean this is impressive. And certainly If you don't, at least you need to improve your SQ. We don't know about SQ, you know RP. There are a lot of [LAUGH] new. And then for this, we don't need your RP, or your [FOREIGN]. You need this, this is what we call a search quotient. [FOREIGN]. We talk about [FOREIGN] when we talk about [FOREIGN] and here is the search quotient. The point is that when you want to find some good data, and you go online, not everyone resulted with the same thing. I mean, if you have super good searching skills, you'll find out a lot of data. Yes, definitely. So for this, you may search for another course, online searching course or something, I believe there are a lot of them. And before you present or after you have the first draft, you need some revision. And actually like for me, every time when I'm having a lecture for my class, not only should I prepare all those materials but also I need to find out what kind of a story or experience that I want to share in this session, and when I should cite those examples, or those stories. And for you, you need to do a good plan. In the beginning, you probably may need an ice breaker in the beginning. At least speakers in western culture, they do this a lot in the very beginning. They can make fun of everything. The weather, the traffic, and sometimes themselves. Yes, you can make fun of your name, or whatever, your background, anything. And [COUGH] a story or some impressive experience, and this is something that you audience may drive home. I mean believe me, if you are trying to impart some knowledge they could memorize that, they could not. The chance is that most timely they forgot the next day but they always remember good jokes, or traumatic experience, or something that you have talked about very personal, a unique experience. They memorize that, probably for the rest of their lives, you see? And the joke for us is that, back in the days that I was coaching in for students who are taking examinations. After 10 years, 20 years, they still remember me because they had a good memory about one or two jokes. And some of them, they may have a good memory about a fable that I quoted to inspire them, and they memorize that, you see? And they forgot about the all the words. Definitely, for sure. So this is to that point. And also to make your presentational speech more interactive, you may ask some small questions. Here I should limit the adjective as small activities. You don't do a lot of, I know, question asking, big questions. Small questions, it's just so easy to answer, and then they start to talk, okay? Like yes or no. And ask them to raise their hand. I believe you can do this. But you don't ask them very complicated question in the very beginning, then people got shocked, especially in China, the Chinese student belong to the silent majority, and then they respond to you with some silence. This will be awkward. So, in the very beginning, if you do the ice breaker, if you are [INAUDIBLE], you have some personal story or some interesting story or impressive experience, or you have done some questions or some more activities, and I believe your speech or presentation will be more lively. And they will at least, they will enjoy that moment, okay? So. The third, otherwise is that after you have followed this course that you want to put on some intercultural perspective in the beginning of the dressing code. If you have a bunch of international audience then you probably may need to understand what kind of occasion it is. It is very formal. You need to dress up, and you need to wear a tie. Actually has taken the previous session as a half formal one. So, actually he came with a tie, a red tie, to show his dual respect to the audience, which is a part of their western culture. And you also need to mind when you are saying people's names and their titles, like Mr. you don't use Mr. all the time. If he is a doctor or she is a doctor, then usually use Doctor, at least in a western culture. But even in China it takes at least four years or eight years to put a Doctor in the beginning of your name, so they deserve it, they deserve your respect. Avoid sexual, racial, religious prejudices. And you should keep this in mind because you are talking to people from different cultures. And do not use those terms or units on your own counter, and try to apply them to international standard. And use counterparts whenever necessary, like you always talk about we were or we seen, you probably may translate that into the things they are more familiar with. I believe that this is something that you need to do when you have the first draft. And you put this scale on the draft and then you find others somewhere that you can improve on. And the last one is about your Verbal & non-verbal language. This is actually the most difficult part, because you cannot build it up within days. And my otherwise is that, if you feel that, well, generally I have a good idea how I can make a good presentation, I have very good story to share, I have put on the inter-cultural perspective. I have searched it online. I've got good data and images and cartoons or whatever necessary but every time when I talk in English I feel less confident. If you belong to these group of people then this is something you need to do. Read or watch, I mean, read, by read I mean you can read a newspaper, and also you may read some scripts for speeches. There are tons of good scripts for these speeches. I mean, to make it more efficient, I seriously suggest that you read speech scripts, like from TED Talks. When you read them, actually you can read aloud and you watch those videos and gradually you are picking up new vocabulary, okay? And also you need to mention with your body language. Don't use those vague gestures before you know them, whatever those kind of body language. And keep on building your active vocabulary over the time. And, well definitely it takes time. Every time we say that something takes time, it becomes difficult. It may sometimes turn into mission impossible.
